Surat | A special court in Gujarat's Surat on Monday sentenced two persons to life imprisonment for the gangrape of a 17-year-old girl last year.
Special judge VV Parmar held the accused, Munna Paswan and Raju Vishwakarma, guilty of charges under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita, Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
Three accused were involved in the crime, one of whom, Shiv Shankar alias Dayashankar Chourasiya, died after suffering an acute breathing issue after being taken to a hospital for medical examination following his arrest in October last year.
The two accused were sentenced to life imprisonment till their last breath under section 70(2) of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita for gangrape and sections under the POCSO Act, public prosecutor Nayan Sukhadwala said.
He said the court also directed the state government to pay the victim a compensation of Rs 10 lakh under its scheme.
The court took note of the criminal history of the accused persons and the mental state that led them to commit such a crime.
Sukhadwala said it also considered the shock and grief the victim's family had to endure and said there was no scope for a lesser punishment while delivering a judgment in over 525 pages.
He said 47 witnesses were presented apart from documentary, medical and scientific evidence.
The prosecution also provided the court with a voice clip auto-recorded on the mobile phone of the person whom one of the accused called, confessing to having committed the crime.
"This is the first conviction in Surat under the provisions of the BNS," he said.
The accused raped the girl when she was out with a friend during the Navratri festival on the night of October 8 last year.
The girl was sexually assaulted in a deserted place on the outskirts of Mota Borsara village in Mangrol taluka in the jurisdiction of Kosamba police station.
According to police, the teen had gone to Kim to meet her friends after attending her coaching class.
At around 10.30 pm, she had ice cream with her two friends. She and her (male) friend were sitting in a deserted place on their way to a petrol pump along the highway near Mota Borsara when the accused approached them.
The trio then grabbed the girl while her friend managed to escape. They took turns to rape her before fleeing with their mobile phones.
The girl's friend informed locals, who reached the area within half an hour and launched a search operation, and the police were also informed.
An FIR was registered under sections 70 (2) (gangrape of a woman under 18), 115-B (voluntarily causing hurt), 54 (abettor present when the offence is committed), and 309-4 (causing hurt in robbery attempt) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS)
