Unnao rape case: Former BJP MLA Kuldeep Sengar sentenced to life imprisonment

A Delhi court on Friday also ordered the expelled BJP MLA to pay a compensation of Rs 25 lakh to the victim.
Unnao rape case: Former BJP MLA Kuldeep Sengar sentenced to life imprisonment
Unnao rape case: Former BJP MLA Kuldeep Sengar sentenced to life imprisonment
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A Delhi court on Friday sentenced expelled BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar sentenced to life imprisonment for raping a minor in 2017. The Tiz Hazari court on Friday also ordered BJP expelled MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar to pay a compensation of Rs 25 lakh to the victim. The court had on December 16 convicted Sengar for rape under the IPC and the section for the POCSO Act for offence of public servant committing penetrative sexual assault on a child. District Judge Dharmesh Sharma has acquitted co-accused Shashi Singh in the case. 

During the hearing earlier this week,the court said the CBI proved that the victim was a minor and was rightly prosecuted the special law. The court also expressed surprise over the delay by the CBI in filing charge sheet in the rape case and said it prolonged trial against Sengar and others.

Sengar, a four-time BJP MLA from UP's Bangermau, was expelled from the BJP in August 2019. The court had on August 9 framed charges against the MLA and Singh under Sections 120 b (criminal conspiracy), 363 (kidnapping), 366 (kidnapping or inducing a woman to compel for marriage), 376 (rape) and other relevant sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. The offences entail maximum punishment of life imprisonment.

On July 28 this year, the car of the survivor was hit by a truck and she was severely injured. The woman's two aunts were killed in the accident and her family had alleged foul play.

Her father was allegedly framed in an illegal arms case and arrested on April 3, 2018. He died while in judicial custody a few days later, on April 9. The local court here has framed murder and other charges against the MLA, his brother Atul and nine others in the case.

The apex court, taking cognisance of the rape survivor's letter written to the Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, had on August 1 transferred all five cases registered in connection with the Unnao rape incident from a Lucknow court in Uttar Pradesh to the court in Delhi with directions to hold trial on daily basis and completing it within 45-days.

The trial in the other four cases - framing of the rape survivor's father in illegal firearms case and his death in judicial custody, conspiracy of Sengar with others in the accident case and a separate case of gangrape of the rape survivor by three others -- are ongoing in the court.

During the trial in the rape case which was held in-camera, thirteen prosecution witnesses and nine defence witnesses were examined. The mother of the rape survivor and her uncle were the main witnesses in the case.

A special court was also held at AIIMS hospital here to record the statement of the rape survivor, who was admitted there after she was air-lifted from a hospital in Lucknow.

The woman and her family has been given CRPF security as per the apex court's orders. They have now been shifted to a rented accommodation in the national capital with the assistance of the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW).

(With PTI inputs)
 

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