Three youth accused of raping woman acquitted by a Delhi court

Three youth accused of abducting and raping a 19-year-old married woman have been acquitted by a Delhi court after the alleged victim failed to turn up in the court and remained untraceable.

Additional Sessions Judge Yogesh Khanna let off the three accused observing that even the medical evidence does not point at gangrape of the alleged victim, a resident of West Bengal.

"...the prosecutrix and her husband, both had failed to appear before the court despite various opportunities granted to the prosecution, and as the prosecution failed to get them examined so there is no incriminating evidence against the accused persons, hence in these circumstances, all the accused are acquitted of the charges...," the court said.

The youth were arrested by the police on a complaint lodged by the victim's husband, alleging that the trio had abducted his wife from their south Delhi apartment.

The man in his complaint with the Vasant Kunj Police here had said he had come to Delhi on January 24, 2012 in search of job.

"On January 26, 2012 night, three persons forcibly entered my house and started beating me. They forcibly took my wife to the first floor of the same building. I also ran down at the first floor but they took my wife inside a room and bolted the door from inside and had beaten my wife and committed rape upon her, one after another," the man had told the police.

The court, however, brushed aside the prosecution theory and said the accused are facing allegations since January 2012 almost for nearly two years and "the case cannot be allowed to linger on till eternity as all efforts to trace the prosecutrix and her husband have failed."