Five men, convicted in the sensational 2010 Dhaula Kuan gangrape case of a BPO woman executive from north-east, were on Monday given life imprisonment by a Delhi court which said they were “psychopaths” who should be kept away from the society as long as possible.
Additional Sessions Judge Virender Bhat said that the offence demonstrates that the five married men having children, “were on the prowl, looking for a prey to satiate their sexual lust.”
Terming the crime committed by the convicts as intensely “grave,” “serious” and “odious” in nature, the judge said that the “rape victim has to live with the scar of rape throughout her whole life and incident of rape shatters her life as well as her dreams in a violent manner”.
“Rape is a serious blow to the honour, dignity and womanhood of the victim and besides causing immense trauma to her, it has an everlasting impact upon her mind as well as soul,” the judge said while awarding the maximum sentence and imposing a fine of Rs 50,000 on each of them.
The court handed down the sentence to Usman alias Kale, Shamshad alias Khutkan, Shahid alias Chhota Billi, Iqbal alias Bada Billi and Kamruddin alias Mobile, all residents of Mewat region in Haryana.
Making hard hitting remarks to justify the punishment, the court said, “It appears that the convicts were wandering upon the Delhi roads like beasts looking for their target of attack. It has come on record that all the convicts were married at that time, having children and still they were roaming on the roads in Delhi in search of a soft target to satisfy their sexual lust.”
Terming the convicts as “psychopaths”, the court said they “have no regard for the honour and dignity of the women folk in the society and thus are threat to the whole society.”
“It is the demand of justice that they should be kept away from the society as long as possible,” the judge said in his seven-page order on sentence.
“All the five accused are sentenced to life imprisonment for the offence under section 376 (2)(g) (gangrape) of IPC along with fine of Rs 25,000 each. For offence under section 365 /34 (abduction with common intention) seven years rigorous imprisonment is awarded alongwith fine of Rs 25,000 each and for offence under section 506 /34 (criminal intimidation with common intention) five years rigorous imprisonment has been awarded,” the judge said.
The court passed the order on sentence in the jampacked courtroom where all the convicts were present while their family members were waiting outside the gate of the court.
Rejecting the submission for leniency by defence counsel on the ground that they all hail from poor families, the court said, “this ground does not raise enough confidence”.
As soon as the court pronounced its order on sentence, all the convicts broke down and started sobbing. After the judge left his seat, convict Shahid fainted in the court with advocates sprinkling water on his face. After he failed to regain consciousness, he was rushed to the dispensary on a shoulder of policemen.
As soon as the family members waiting outside the court saw Shahid being taken on the shoulder of a policemen, they started wailing and cursing the investigating officer of the case, media personnel and the policemen present there.
“They have killed our son. Now without him what is left in our lives, they have ruined us,” Mujhaid, a relative of Shahid, shouted before being pushed back by the policemen.
According to the police, the convicts had abducted the 30-year-old victim from south Delhi’s Dhaula Kuan area on the intervening night of November 23-24, 2010 when she was returning home from her office in Gurgaon.
The convicts then took her to Mangolpuri in outer Delhi, gang-raped her and left her at an isolated road. The victim has since returned to her home in Mizoram.
Image: A protest against increasing cases of sexual assault in India
