Being a sex worker doesn't confer right to violate her: Court

A Delhi court has sentenced four youths to 10 years rigorous imprisonment for abducting and gangraping a Rwandan refugee, saying merely because she was working as a sex worker does not confer the right upon anyone to violate her dignity.

Additional Sessions Judge Kaveri Baweja convicted all the accused Deepak, Praveen, Vikas and Ashok Ekka,Delhi residents, for the offences under sections 366/ 34 (abduction with common intention), 376(2)(G)(gangrape) and 392/ 34 (robbery with common intention) of IPC.

The court also slapped a fine of Rs 59,000 on all the convicts and ordered that it be given to the victim as compensation.

While refusing to take a lenient view, the court said, "It is apparent on going through the record of the case that the victim was a foreigner i.E. A refugee from Rwanda who was subjected to a heinous offence of gangrape by the convicts."

"It may be reiterated that simply because the victim was working as a sex worker before the incident in question, does not confer any right upon anyone to violate her dignity or to rob her and can certainly not be a ground to award less than the minimum prescribed punishment," the judge said in a 110- page judgement.

The court, while holding all the four accused guilty for the offence, said, "even if it is accepted that prosecutrix (girl) was doing the work of prostitution, in view of her claim that accused established sexual relations with her without her consent, the same has to be accepted by virtue of presumption under section 114­A of Indian Evidence Act."

According to prosecution, on December 1, 2012, at around 7 PM, the girl was abducted and gangraped in a car by four youths near Timarpur in north Delhi.

The police said that the girl was beaten up and gangraped in the moving car as well as on the banks of river Yamuna by all of them and her valuables including cell phone, purse and money were taken away.

The victim, who was left on the bank of the river, reached her residence in Wazirabad here after she was helped by a passerby and lodged a complaint against the youths.

She provided the details of the car, in which she was gangraped, to the police, which led to the arrest of all the accused.

The court, while convicting the youths, also relied on the recovery of the belongings of the victim from the car, DNA reports of the convicts and the victim, besides her testimony.

"There is no room for doubt regarding either the samples taken during medical examination of prosecutrix or the report of DNA Analysis, which to my mind, clinches the case of the prosecution, and clearly establishes that it is Ashok,Praveen, Deepak and Vikas, who committed the rape upon the victim," the judge said.

During the trial, the youths pleaded innocence and claimed that they were falsely implicated by the girl who was staying in the country illegally.

They claimed that the girl was a prostitute and to extend her stay here, she had lodged a false case against them.