Park Street rape convicts sentenced to 10-year jail

All the three convicts in the Park Street gangrape case in Kolkata were sentenced to 10 years rigorous imprisonment by a sessions court on Friday, over three years after the assault on a 40-year-old mother of two teenage daughters in a moving car.

Additional sessions judge Chiranjib Bhattacharya sentenced Ruman Khan, Naser Khan and Sumit Bajaj to 10 years RI with Rs 1 lakh fine each, a day after they were convicted on the charge of gangrape under Section 376 (2)(g) of the Indian Penal Code.

The charge entails a minimum punishment of 10 years imprisonment and a maximum of life sentence.

If the fines are not paid, the convicts would have to undergo a further imprisonment of six months each, the judge said while passing the order in camera.

The judge also sentenced Ruman Khan and Naser Khan to six months’ RI each under Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) and Section 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) of the IPC and a fine of Rs 10,000 and Rs 5,000 respectively from the two convicts, chief public prosecutor Sarbani Roy said.

All the terms would run concurrently.

The court, which had pronounced the three guilty on Thursday, heard their prayers before pronouncing the quantum of punishment.

All of them claimed to be innocent and alleged that the charges were concocted.

Two other accused -- main accused Kadir Khan and Ali -- are absconding.

Counsels for the convicts prayed that they be given the minimum sentence in view of their antecedents, while claiming they were innocent.

Suzette Jordan, the victim, appeared in public several times and had waived her right to anonymity, saying she had no inhibition in her name being published to encourage other rape survivors to speak out.

She died of encephalitis in March this year.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had courted controversy after she said that the hue and cry over the incident was an attempt to malign her government and that it was fabricated.

The court also directed that the fine amount, if realised from the convicts, would go to the two daughters of the victim. The convicts are planning to challenge the verdict in Kolkata high court.

Suzette was picked up in a car in front of a night club on Park Street in the heart of Kolkata on February 5, 2012 and gangraped before she was thrown off about 2 km away.

The prosecution counsel told the court that the convicts were not directly involved in the commission of the crime and that they be sentenced according to the statute.

While claiming that he was innocent, Ruman Khan told the court that his parents were aged and that he had two unmarried sisters.

Naser Khan stated before the court that his parents had died during his judicial custody.

Sumit Bajaj claimed that he had a good academic background and had no criminal antecedent.

All the three were arrested on February 18, 2012, and have been in custody since then.