Stating that their act has brought our country “disrepute in the eyes of the world”, a special fast-track court has held two men guilty of gangraping and kidnapping a Ugandan national and sentenced them to 30 years’ rigorous imprisonment.
“The manner in which the two convicts committed the crime shows that they are ferocious criminals with no concern for the respect and dignity of a woman… 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,” Additional Sessions Judge Virender Bhat said.
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The court held the two men — Raj Kumar and Dinesh Sharma — guilty under sections 365 (kidnapping), 356 (assault for theft), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 376(D) (gangrape) of the IPC.
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In June last year, the Ugandan woman was kidnapped by the convicts in their car from Janakpuri around 11.30 pm. Kumar and Sharma took the woman to a house in Uttam Nagar, where they gangraped her. The woman was then dumped near a Metro pillar.
“The two were on the prowl like a hungry wolf and their eyes shone brightly on seeing the prosecutrix, a lonely foreign national… They immediately swung into action by dragging her inside their car, took her to the house of Kumar’s sister, where they raped her by taking turns and then dumped her near Metro pillar No. 781 early in the morning,” the court said, accepting the version of the prosecution.
While convicting the men, the court in a rare move “discarded” the DNA report in the case, relying on the “credible” testimony of the victim. “The medical evidence or forensic evidence is based upon the performance of machine used by the expert, certain calculations made by the expert and also some guesswork. 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,” Bhat said.
“Having regard to the facts and circumstances of the present case and the evidence led by the prosecution, this court has no difficulty in accepting the version of the prosecutrix (victim) on its face value and in discarding the DNA report,” the court added.
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The court observed that the testimony of the victim appears “credible, reliable and free from embellishments” and “inspires the confidence of the court”. “It may be noted here that in cases involving the offence of rape, the testimony of prosecutrix is the most vital and material piece of evidence. Her statement, if found to be worthy of credence and reliable, requires no corroboration and court may convict the accused on her sole testimony,” the court said.
Kaunain Sheriff M is an award-winning investigative journalist and the National Health Editor at The Indian Express. He is the author of Johnson & Johnson Files: The Indian Secrets of a Global Giant, an investigation into one of the world’s most powerful pharmaceutical companies.
With over a decade of experience, Kaunain brings deep expertise in three areas of investigative journalism: law, health, and data. He currently leads The Indian Express newsroom’s in-depth coverage of health.
His work has earned some of the most prestigious honours in journalism, including the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism, the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) Award, and the Mumbai Press Club’s Red Ink Award.
Kaunain has also collaborated on major global investigations. He was part of the Implant Files project with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which exposed malpractices in the medical device industry across the world. He also contributed to an international investigation that uncovered how a Chinese big-data firm was monitoring thousands of prominent Indian individuals and institutions in real time.
Over the years, he has reported on several high-profile criminal trials, including the Hashimpura massacre, the 2G spectrum scam, and the coal block allocation case. Within The Indian Express, he has been honoured three times with the Indian Express Excellence Award for his investigations—on the anti-Sikh riots, the Vyapam exam scam, and the abuse of the National Security Act in Uttar Pradesh. ... Read More
