JNU scholar gets 5 yr RI for raping lover

NEW DELHI: A Ph.D scholar from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), charged with raping his girlfriend after intoxicating her four years ago, has been sentenced to five years' rigorous imprisonment by a court.

Taking strong exception to conduct of Gufran Mustafa, then pursuing Ph.D from the elite university, Additional Sessions Judge S P Garg said, "The prosecutrix was honest enough to admit the fact of her having established physical relations with the accused prior to the incident. However, the said relations were made with her free consent and he had no license to violate her privacy as and when he wished".

Relying on the well-corroborated testimony of the 20-year-old victim, the judge refused aspersions on her character caste by the defence, saying "Mustafa was a student doing his Ph.D. The acts of establishing physical relationship with the prosecutrix prior to the incident can equally be a reflection on his character also".

The court, in a recent order, declined the suggestion that the accused was roped in the false case by the victim's father as Mustafa had refused to marry his daughter and said that no father could stoop so low as to bring forth a false charge of rape on his unmarried daughter with a view to taking revenge.

"The defence plea defies human probabilities," it said, noting that the negotiations for marriage between the two had broken much before the incident and no other ulterior motive behind implicating him could be proved.

Mustafa, who after completion of his Ph.D from JNU had opened a cyber cafe at the gate of the campus, had a steady relation with the victim until he along with a friend had on October 12, 2002 ravished her after administering some stupefying substance, the prosecution had alleged.

Mustafa had the next day allegedly called up the girl's sister asking to take her home from Ramlila Ground here. An FIR was lodged with the Vasant Vihar Police Station on October 17 that year, accusing him and his friend of raping the victim.

He was arrested the next day along with the co-accused, who was acquitted by the court later as the victim refused to identify him as the other offender.

The defence had also raised doubt on the credibility of the girl's deposition in view of delay of five days in lodging an FIR but the court denied acceding to the plea and observed that she had sufficiently explained the reasons for delay and there was nothing to disbelieve her explanation.

The prosecution proved its case against Mustafa with the help of 16 witnesses, including the victim's parents and her sister, who was regarded as the eye-witness as she had taken her sister home just after the fateful incident.