Haryana's Dec 16: Seven sent to gallows for gang-rape

Judge asks how many times Nirbhaya would die; trial finished in 10 months

Seven people, convicted for raping and killing a 28-year-old mentally-challenged Nepalese woman, were on Monday sentenced to death by a court, with the Judge asking “how many times Nirbhaya would die” and such crimes should be met with a “very heavy hand”.

The trial was completed within 10 months after hogging headlines due to the brutality of the crime. The capital punishment awarded by a lower court is subject to confirmation of High Court.

Additional District and Sessions Judge Seema Singhal, who had convicted all the seven accused in the case last week, pronounced the quantum of punishment on Monday. Interestingly, apart from the seven convicts, one juvenile was also involved in the crime and is facing trial before Juvenile Justice Board.

The woman was brutally raped and murdered and her body dumped in a field along the Rohtak-Hisar highway near Bahu Akbarpur village of Rohtak in February this year. The post-mortem report of the woman mentioned several injuries on her private parts, doctors had said, adding that stones and blades were also found in her body.

Given the brutality of the crime, the prosecution had appealed to the court that capital punishment be awarded to the convicts. “The court awarded death sentence under Section 302,” lawyer Pradeep Malik, who represented the victim’s side in the case, said.

Besides, they were sentenced under Section 376 D (gang-rape) and awarded life imprisonment for remaining part of their life.

“They were also sentenced under Section 366 (kidnapping) in which they got ten years, under Section 201 which is destruction of evidence for which they were handed down a sentence of seven years. Besides, Rs 50,000 fine was imposed on all the seven,” he said.

Malik also said the court has said that “all the sentences will run consecutively.” “It’s a landmark judgment, in which the court has said that these sentences will run one after the other. Normally concurrent sentences merge into maximum sentence. Here the sentences will run one after the other,” he pointed out. Haryana DGP Yashpal Singhal had constituted a Special Investigation Team which arrested the eight out of nine accused identified in the case.