A Delhi court has sentenced a 26-year-old man to 10 years in jail for kidnapping and raping a teenage girl in 2010.
Additional Sessions judge Mahesh Chander Gupta awarded the jail term to Rajesh, a resident of Rajasthan, for kidnapping and raping the 17-year-old school girl. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 32,000 on the convict. The judge said the prosecution had proved the charges against Rajesh "beyond shadows of all reasonable doubts", and added that "from the testimony of the girl, it is clearly indicated that she was enticed or lured by the accused". The court held Rajesh guilty of the offences punishable under various sections of the IPC, including 376 (rape), 363 (kidnapping) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy).
According to police, the girl was kidnapped in May 2010 by Rajesh, who was living in Sultan Puri where the victim was also residing. The prosecution claimed that the accused took the girl to his sister's house in Palam and held her captive. It also alleged that Rajesh's sister and brother-in-law gave intoxicating drugs to the teenager and tried to force her into flesh trade.
However, the sister and brother-in-law of the accused could not be arrested during the investigation. The police told the court that the accused kept the girl in a rented accommodation for about a month and assaulted her during the period. He also repeatedly raped her, it said.
During the trial, Rajesh pleaded innocence and claimed that he was being falsely implicated in the case and that the girl had left her house on her own. He also told the court that he had not raped the girl and that they were in a relationship. The girl told the court that Rajesh used to come to the house of one of her tenants and over time they became acquainted. She, however, categorically told the judge that she was raped by him.
While convicting Rajesh, the court noted that there was nothing in the girl's statement to suggest that she had any animosity to falsely implicate him in the case.
Regarding the claim by the accused that the girl was a consenting party and she did not raise any alarm when she was with him, the court observed that it could not falsify the prosecution's case which was proved by "clear, cogent and convincing evidence". "When a minor girl has been encouraged and induced with green pastures and has come under the total dominance and inducement of the accused, one is left wandering as to how it is expected that she would gather the courage in such circumstances to raise hue and cry," the judge said.
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