Five sentenced to life for gangrape

NEW DELHI: A Delhi court has sentenced five persons to life imprisonment for gang raping a 34-year-old woman and forcing her to commit suicide seven years ago.
    
"Cases of gang rape reflect that line between man and beast is lost in lust. The cries and wails of woman went unheard and did not move the convicts in the acts of shame and lust. It shows that the bottomless pit of depravation and lust a person can go down," Additional Sessions Judge Anoop Kumar Mendiratta said.
    
The court awarded life term to -- Davander alias Kala, Sandy alias Ved Prakash, Sanjay, Sheel alias Sushil and Jasbir alias Lily -- with a fine of Rs 10,000 after holding them guilty under Section 376(2)(g) (gang rape) and 306 (abetment of suicide) of the IPC.
    
A case was registered against the five convicts in Kanjhawala police station in north west Delhi on January 12, 2002 after the victim ended her life, leaving a suicide note on which she had scribbled the names of accused.
    
The victim, who consumed sulphas tablets for committing suicide, even named the accused just before her death, the prosecution said.
    
The court rejected the leniency plea of the convicts, saying that the impact of such offences on the social order needed to be assessed and public interest could not be lost sight of.
    
It also brushed aside the defence plea that there was discrepancy in the nature of injuries and the post mortem report while the identity of the accused was also not established.
    
Additional Public Prosecutor G S Goraya contended that the statements made by the victim just before her death should be treated as the dying declaration.

"The absence of injuries may not itself discredit the dying declaration of the deceased if the same is found reliable and trustworthy," the court said.
    
The victim, who consumed sulphas tablets, and also tried to poison her three-year-old daughter (who survived), had allegedly told her brother-in-law Rajesh and brother Sartaj that she was gang raped by the accused after being dragged to a field at Laudpur village here.
     
After recording statements of 38 prosecution witness, the court said, "The forensic reports coupled with dying declaration leaves no iota of doubt that the deceased had been raped."