NEW DELHI: A city court on Monday convicted five persons for gangraping, robbing and kidnapping a 52-year-old Danish woman at knife-point near the New Delhi railway station in 2014.
Additional Sessions Judge Ramesh Kumar said he will hear the arguments on quantum of sentence on June 9. “All accused are held guilty for all offences,” the judge said.The judge convicted them for the offences under sections 376 (D) (gang rape), 395 (dacoity), 366 (kidnapping), 342 (wrongful confinement), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 34 (common intention) of IPC.
The convicts Mahendra alias Ganja (27), Mohd Raja (23), Raju (24), Arjun (22), Raju Chakka (23) were present in the court when the order was pronounced.
The woman had come to India on 1 January, 2014, and stayed in Delhi for a couple of days before leaving for Agra. After visiting several places, she returned to the national capital on 13 January, 2014, and stayed in a hotel in Paharganj near the railway station.
On the next day when she was returning to her hotel, she lost her way and asked one of the accused for directions when the men waylaid and gang-raped her.
According to the prosecution, the five, all vagabonds, had robbed and gang-raped the Danish tourist at knife-point on the night of January 14, 2014, after leading her to a secluded spot close to the Divisional Railway Officers’ Club near the New Delhi railway station. Meanwhile, the defence counsel told the court that they had challenged its previous order dismissing a plea seeking to examine some doctors as witnesses on the potency of the sixth accused, 56-year-old Shyam Lal, who died in February this year. The court, however, said nowhere in the application was it mentioned that the proceedings had been stayed by the Delhi High Court. Later in the day, the High Court dismissed the petition of the accused after the conviction.
While rejecting the charges levelled against them, the convicts had claimed that a day before the January 14, 2014 incident, they had hired a prostitute and had sex with her.
Advocate Dinesh Sharma, who represented all the accused, said he would file an appeal against the judgment before the Delhi High Court.