Additional Sessions Judge Virender Bhat awarded life imprisonment to the five men — Shamshad alias Khutkan, Usman alias Kale, Shahid alias Chhota Billi, Iqbal alias Bada Billi and Kamruddin for the offence of gang rape.
The Court also sentenced the convicts to seven years imprisonment for abduction charges, five years rigorous imprisonment for charges of criminal intimidation. The convicts would undergo the jail terms concurrently.
The Court also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 each on all the convicts.
The quantum of sentence was pronounced in a jam-packed Court room amidst high drama with one convict Shahid fainting in the Court room. Some relatives of the convicts also broke down in the Court room and termed the verdict as miscarriage of justice, saying they would challenge the verdict in the Delhi High Court.
The prosecution had sought life term, the maximum jail term for the offences for which the men have been convicted, citing the horrendous nature of crime. The defence counsels, on the other hand, had sought minimum punishment for the convicts on grounds of long custodial period, their family responsibilities and poor financial condition.
The five men were held guilty of abducting the woman, who hailed from the North East, on November 24, 2010 and then gang-raping her. The woman was walking home with a friend after her work shift ended.
The abductors took her to Mangolpuri, gang-raped her, and left her on an isolated road there. The men were later arrested from Mewat in Haryana.
Following the incident, Delhi Police ordered all BPOs in Delhi and the National Capital Region to drop women employees at their home after their shift ends.
Source: The Sangai Express
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