A special court sentenced four of the five accused in the gangrape of a 19-year-old Dalit woman in Rajasthan's Alwar last year. The fifth accused, who circulated a video of the crime on social media, has been convicted and sentenced to five years in jail.
The verdict was pronounced by a special court for hearing cases under the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
The woman was raped by the four men and juvenile in front of her husband on 26 April 2019, as one man filmed the incident. According to the complaint, the men then asked the woman and her husband for 10,000 rupees for not putting the video on social media.
The incident sparked widespread criticism from opposition parties in the state for the delay by the police in filing the FIR.
The police also delayed in filing the chargesheet for the case which was filed 16 days after the the FIR was lodged.
Chhote Lal (22), Hansraj Gurjar (20), Ashok Kumar Gurjar (20) and Indraj Singh Gurjar (22) were charged under sections 147 (rioting), 149 (unlawful assembly), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 327 (Voluntarily causing hurt to extort property, or to constrain to an illegal act), 341 (wrongful restraint), 342 (wrongful confinement), 354B (outraging the modesty of a woman), 365 (Kidnapping or abducting with intent secretly and wrongfully to confine person), 376D (gang rape), 384 (extortion), 395 (dacoity) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code.
The police also charged them under different sections of the SC/ST Act and the Information and Technology Act in the FIR.
(With inputs from Hindustan Times)
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