Gujarat HC confirms life term for 5 teachers

The five teachers have been identified as Manish Parmar,Kiran Patel,Ashwin Parmar,Mahendra Prajapati and Suresh Patel. The accused whose sentence of life imprisonment has been reduced to 10 years’ imprisonment has been identified as Atul Patel.

Manisha Lavkumar,special public prosecutor in the case,said the court has confirmed the sentence of all the accused except for Atul Patel.

Atul Patel’s counsel Rajkumar Chaumal said that his sentence has been reduced by the court while holding that he did not commit gangrape.

The case pertains to the gangrape of a Dalit girl student by her teachers at the hostel of Primary Teacher’s Certificate college in Patan district in 2008,which witnessed large scale protests. The girl was gangraped by six of her teachers at different times and the issue came to light when the girl fainted in the prayer hall of the college on January 31,2008.

On February 4 that year,college girls had complained to the college authorities about the accused teachers.

Subsequently,the trial was conducted on fast-track basis in the court of the then Patan’s Principal District Judge,Swarnlata Srivastava.

The court had on March 6,2009 convicted all the six accused teachers to life imprisonment and ordered them to pay compensation of Rs 10,000 each to the victim.