A rapist in Sehore was convicted on Wednesday with the court sending him behind the bars for rest of his life for raping, kidnapping and criminally intimidating two minor girls.
Nasarullaganj Sessions Judge Shashibhushan Pathak sentenced the culprit to two separate terms of life imprisonments and also fined him with Rs 30,000 in a case of rape of two minor girls.
Apart from rape, the convict was also sentenced to two terms of ten years rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 10,000 under section 366 of IPC for kidnapping minor girls. He was also sentenced to two terms of five years imprisonment and Rs 4000 fine for criminal intimidation. According to the prosecution, the convict 42 years-old Kedar Panwar, a resident of ward number 11 in Nasarullaganj tehsil, took away the two minor victims on January 2, 2011 from village Jamonia Kalan to Sivni Banapura and raped them in a lodge there.
Of the two victims, one girl was 15 years-old and the other was 13 years-old. The next day, on January 3, he left the two girls on road near their village. They went to their homes and narrated the event after which a case was lodged against the culprit.
Notably, Kedar is known in the villages of the area as he used to organize pilgrimage trips for the villagers. He misled the victims’ parents by saying that he was taking the girls at a bhandara in a nearby village. It is a normal practice in the area to organize bhandara after a pilgrimage. Therefore, the parents of these girls trusted him and did not doubt his intentions. However, instead of taking the girls to the bhandara he took them to another village and kept them in a lodge where he raped them. He also intimidated them that if they tell anybody about the incident he would burn them.
Based on the testimony of witnesses and evidences produced before him, Sessions Judge Shashibhushan Pathak not only considered him guilty of the heinous crimes he had committed but also for betraying the trust of villagers. Taking a strict view of this, he pronounced the judgment ensuring that the convict spends rest of his life in prisons.