Man gets life term for raping autistic woman

A special court has sentenced a man to life imprisonment and imposed a penalty of Rs 50,000 after declaring him guilty of sexually assaulting an autistic woman.

The incident took place three years ago when the man was 37 years old, and the woman was around 24 years old.

Ashutosh Pandey, Additional Director General (ADG), prosecution, said, "The DNA sampling of the rape survivor's 19-week foetus at that time and regular monitoring of the case by the prosecution helped in taking action against the accused. The case was a bit different as the survivor had neurodevelopmental disorder and was unable to express herself or identify the person."

The convict, Khushal Singh, was the survivor's trainer and he outraged her modesty at the training centre near Ram Ram Bank crossing in Madiaon, taking advantage of her disorder.

The incident was reported to the police on November 26, 2018, after the survivor's parents found her 19 weeks pregnant, said the ADG.

Initially, investigators did not have any proper evidence against the accused as the survivor was unable to narrate the incident.

The man was arrested on February 16, 2019, after his DNA sample was matched with the foetus, which was preserved after the victim's pregnancy was terminated due to medical complications, said Pandey.

He said Khushal Singh, along with his wife, runs Samarpan Day Care Foundation, in Madiaon, Lucknow.

Earlier, the couple worked at different training centres for special children. The rape survivor was kept at a special children's centre in Dehradun for 11 years as she was unable to speak and identify anyone because of her neuro-development disorder.

The woman's parents, who worked in Lucknow, brought her to the city during the summer vacation. She had been kept her in the day care centre run by Khushal Singh for 10 days. After the incident, the woman, who has speech disability, could not tell her parents about it.

The police first zeroed in on three suspects at the day care centre and collected blood samples to match them with the DNA sample of the foetus.

"DNA sampling was done in two months' time, and it matched with that of Khushal Singh. He later confessed to the crime when he was questioned. He said he raped the woman when his wife was not present at the day care centre," the ADG said.

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