Handicapped man gets 10 years jail for raping woman

A 32-year-old handicapped man has been sentenced to 10 years rigorous imprisonment by a Delhi court for raping a woman on the pretext of marriage.

Additional Sessions Judge M C Gupta held Kinu Munda guilty of raping the 21-year-old woman, a native of Orissa, while relying on the testimony of the victim that she was repeatedly raped by him for over a month in 2011 on the false promise of marriage, though he was already married thrice.

"I am of the considered opinion that as far as the involvement of Kinu Munda in the commission of the offence under section 376 (rape) of the IPC is concerned, the same is sufficiently established by the cogent and reliable evidence," the judge said.

The court also imposed a fine of Rs 20,000 on Kinu, a resident of Shakurpur here.

"The testimony of prosecutrix is found to be natural, clear, cogent, convincing, trustworthy and inspiring confidence. There is nothing in her statement to suggest that she had any animus against the accused Kinu Munda to falsely implicate him in the case," the court said.

According to the prosecution, the woman, received a call from Kinu, whom she knew since her first visit to Delhi in 2009, and was told that a job had been arranged for her.
She then came to the city again in 2011 from her native village and Kinu kept her in his house for months and raped her on the false pretext of marriage and job, it said.

When the woman came to know of Kinu's three subsisting marriages and confronted her, he threw her out of his house after beating and raping her on the morning of December 9, 2011.

During the trial, Kinu pleaded not guilty and claimed that he was falsely implicated by the woman. He also told the court, through his wife, that he was handicapped and was not capable of physically assaulting anyone.

He sought leniency from the court saying that his wife was a heart patient and he was a first time offender.

The court rejected the contention that Kinu was falsely implicated, saying, "Normally a woman would not falsely implicate a man for the offence of rape at the cost of her character.

"In Indian society, it is very unusual that a lady with a view to implicate a person would go to the extent of stating that she was raped"

It also rejected the claim of the defence counsel that there was a delay in lodging the FIR on the part of the woman.

"The sight cannot be lost of the fact that Indian women have a tendency to conceal the offence of sexual assault because it involves their as well as the prestige of their family. Only in few cases, the victim or the family members have the courage to go to the police station and lodge a case," it said.