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Minors’ testimony nails mother's rapists as HC upholds conviction

Based on the testimony of two minors, the Bombay high court has upheld the conviction of two men who had raped their mother in 1998.

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Based on the testimony of two minors, the Bombay high court has upheld the conviction of two men who had raped their mother in 1998.

Upholding the 10 years of jail awarded to Dinesh Telang, 42, and Rajkumar Meshram, 44, Justice AP Bhangale observed: “The two children (then aged 11 years and seven years) may not have intellectual capacity to know that their mother was raped, but their evidence do broadly disclose what had happened.”

As the duo is out on bail, the high court told them to surrender within six weeks.

Telang and Meshram had challenged the April 4, 1998, order of the sessions court at Nagpur convicting them on charges of gang rape, house trespassing and criminal intimidation. They were sentenced to 10 years’ jail and directed to pay fine of Rs4,000 each.

The victim lived in a hut at Savitribai Fule Nagar in Nagpur with her mother-in-law and three children. Her husband had deserted her. On August 27, 1991, Telang and Meshram entered the hut at night, threatened her with a knife and raped her. The next morning, the victim and her mother-in-law lodged a complaint. She also identified the accused as they lived in the same locality.

AS Mardikar, advocate for the convicts, argued that the police did not record statements of the neighbours. Also, the hut was latched from inside. Though the trial court examined the victim’s son and a daughter, they did not support the prosecution’s story, claimed Mardikar.

Additional public prosecutor AM Joshi argued that victim was the best witness to depose and there was sufficient corroborative evidence to support her version. The court did not agree with the defence argument that the victim could have raised an alarm. “The victim’s testimony  can be relied upon even without corroboration provided that it inspires confidence in the judicial mind,” the court said.

The son, who was 11 years at the time of the incident, testified that “the two accused were sleeping on his mother”. He said his mother wanted to commit suicide, but he and his grandmother talked her out of it.

“No woman living with her children and aged mother-in-law would implicate herself in the unpleasant incident of rape to take revenge on the accused,” said justice Bhangale.

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