Youth gets 7 yrs jail for raping cousin, forcing to abort child

A youth has been sentenced to seven years jail by a fast track court for raping his cousin on false promise of marriage and forcing her to undergo abortion.

The fast track court, set up to try sexual offence cases against women, took a lenient view towards 22-year-old Delhi resident Jatin Gupta after he said he was willing to marry the girl now and she also prayed for a lenient view in sentence.

The court imposed a fine of Rs 25,000 on Gupta.

"It is held that the prosecution has successfully proved its case against Gupta beyond any reasonable suspicion or shadow of doubt that he not only committed sexual intercourse with the girl forcibly and repeatedly against her will and made her pregnant, but also compelled her to terminate her pregnancy," Additional Sessions Judge T R Naval said.

The court also rejected Gupta's contention that he and the girl were cousins and their marriage was prohibited.

"Conversely, sexual assault by a person in such relationship is more serious than the assault by strangers as it is the duty of that relative to protect a female and when she is assaulted by such person who is supposed to help her, it is more serious and dangerous," the court said.

According to the prosecution, the girl and the boy met in the marriage of their cousin brother in March 2009, developed a friendship and thereafter started meeting each other.
One day, the accused called the girl to a restaurant and gave an order for cold drink and chowmein. After consuming the drink, she felt giddy and asked the accused to drop her to her house, it said, adding he, however, took her to his rented accommodation at Mukherjee Nagar here and raped her.

Gupta assured the girl that he would marry her and developed physical relations with her on the false promise of marriage, the police said.

It said that consequently, the girl became pregnant and the accused took her to a hospital, where against her wishes she was made to undergo abortion on the pretext that it was done to save her life.