CHANDIGARH, May 25: A city resident, accused of kidnapping and raping his cousin, has been acquitted by UT Additional District and Sessions Judge S. S. Lamba. His brother has also been acquitted in the same case.Prime accused Veer Bhan and co-accused Surinder Kumar had earlier been booked by the Chandigarh Police under Sections 363, 366, 376 and 120-B of the IPC on the prosecutree's complaint.She had alleged repeated rape by her maternal uncle's son, Veer Bhan, after she was taken to Bapu Dham Colony. According to the prosecution, the victim was first raped while the family was asleep and subsequently under threat. The accused, instead of taking the victim to her parent's residence in Delhi later on, took her to Rajkot in Gujrat, where they stayed for 11 months. The matter was reported to the police after the victim was left outside her parent's house in February 1996. The defence counsel contended that alarm was not raised by the victim even though she was not confined all the time. Moreover, the parents were not informed by the victim even though the accused had left her with them while shopping.
