A Delhi court has awarded 30-year prison term to two youths for kidnapping and gangraping a Ugandan national, observing that “their act brought India disrepute in the eyes of the world.” Additional Sessions Judge Virender Bhat awarded 30 years jail term to Delhi residents Raj Kumar and Dinesh Sharma along with a fine of Rs50,000 each, saying the “two convicts were on the prowl like a hungry wolf and their eyes shone brightly on seeing the prosecutrix, a lonely foreign national, on road at a late hour of day.”
“By choosing a foreign national as their target, they have shown that they do not care even for the respect and dignity of our country. Their act has brought India disrepute in the eyes of the world. Incidents like this bring a bad name to the country itself,” the judge said while pronouncing the verdict on Tuesday. The court said the manner in which the two convicts committed the crime shows that they are “ferocious criminals with scant regard for the dignity of a woman.” “They were roaming about in their car searching for a lonely lady on the road, whom they can overpower, abduct and then satiate their sexual lust,” it said, adding they immediately swung into action by pulling her inside their car.
The court had earlier convicted Kumar and Sharma for the offence under sections 365 (kidnapping), 356 (assault for theft), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 376(D) (gangrape) of IPC, while relying on the statements of the victim and rejecting the DNA report, which could not prove their guilt. The court observed, “While evaluating evidence, it must remain alive to the fact that in a case of rape, no self-respecting woman would come forward in a court just to make a humiliating statement against her honour.” It said that survivor’s statement, if found to be reliable and worthy of credence, requires no corroboration and it may convict the accused on her sole testimony.
“The medical evidence or the forensic evidence is based upon the performance of machine used by the expert; certain calculations made by the expert and also on some guess work. It is for this reason that the court has to be very circumspect in determining whether it should rely upon the ocular evidence or the medical/forensic evidence in a given case,” it said, while rejecting the contention of the convicts that as DNA report could not prove their crime, they be freed.
According to prosecution, a Ugandan national woman was kidnapped by the convicts in their car at Janakpuri area on June 18, 2014 at around 11.30 pm. Both Kumar and Sharma took her to a house in Uttam Nagar area where they ravaged her in turns and dumped the woman early in the morning near Metro pillar no. 781. The woman recorded her statements before the magistrate with the help of an attaché at Ugandan Embassy. The accused also refused to undergo a Test Identification Parade (TIP), which the court observed was deliberate, to avoid being identified by the survivor.