Two youths have been sentenced tovarying jail terms by a court for kidnapping and gangraping aminor girl in a moving car, to take revenge on her sister.
Additional Sessions Judge Kamini Lau awarded life term to24-year-old Manoj and 10 years of jail to 24-year-old Amit forgangraping and threatening the 12-year-old victim after theyfailed to find her elder sister whom they wanted to teach alesson.
"It is writ large that not finding the woman (victim'ssister), Manoj targeted her younger minor sister hardly aged12 years. This incident being a rape for purpose of revenge,only to teach a lesson to two other women cannot be over-looked and hence Manoj deserves no leniency," the court said.
The judge noted that Manoj was in a live-in relationshipwith a woman who was the friend of minor victim's sister anddue to some disputes between the live-in couple, they used tofrequently approach police.
"In front of the police the victim's sister would takethe side of her friend and perhaps it is for this reason thatManoj decided to teach a lesson to her.
"It is evident from the record that when the victim wasgoing to the market (on February 6 last year) and met Manoj hefirst asked for her sister. However, after some time heinstead took her away," the court said.
The court also imposed a fine of Rs 60,000 on Manoj andRs 20,000 on Amit.
According to the prosecution, on the evening of February6, the victim told him that her sister was at home and hecould meet her there as they were known to each other but, inthe meantime, the other accused Amit came there in a car andManoj forcibly pushed her inside the vehicle.
Police said that both the accused had threatened theminor not to raise an alarm and Manoj raped her inside the carwhile driving through an isolated area. Thereafter, Amit tookthe girl to various places and after raping her dropped her inMangolpuri area.
The girl's family contacted police after she failed to return home in the evening. As Manoj also worked as a policeinformer, the officials sought his help in searching thevictim.
The girl was later found around midnight after her sistercalled at her mobile phone and she told her location, policesaid.
Both the accused were arrested after the victim told herfamily about the incident.
The court rejected the plea of both the convicts that theywere falsely implicated in the case saying medical andforensic evidence had proved that they had raped the girl.
It also observed that since Manoj was a police informer,even the investigation by the probe agency was "extremelycasual".
"So far as convict Manoj is concerned, he was the informerof local police and had taken undue advantage of that statusand felt that he was above the law.
"This court has also observed that even police has beenmost indulgent and the investigation conducted were extremelycasual and the possibility of this being so only to help theinformer i.e. convict Manoj cannot be ruled out," the judgesaid.