A Faridabad court on Monday sentenced four men to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment for abducting a 35-year-old woman, gang-raping her and filming the assault in 2022.
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Additional district and sessions judge Purushottam Kumar also imposed a fine of ₹1 lakh on each convict after holding them guilty under Section 376D (gang-rape) of the Indian Penal Code on July 22.
Rekha JS Jangra, deputy district attorney, said the court also convicted them under sections 506 (criminal intimidation) and 34 (common intention) of the IPC.
“Two of the convicts were additionally sentenced to two years in prison and fined ₹25,000 each under Section 66E of the Information Technology Act for recording the video on their mobile phones, which was retrieved during forensic analysis,” Jangra said, adding that the prosecution had sought life imprisonment for all four.
The convicts, aged 24, 25, 27 and 29, include one who was known to the victim.
The incident occurred in a secluded area of Sector 63 on the night of July 27, 2022, when the victim had gone to the market to buy daily essentials. Police said the 25-year-old accused, who knew her, offered her a lift to a nearby place but instead took her to the spot where three accomplices were waiting. The 24-year-old stood guard while the others gang-raped her, police added.
The woman returned home and told about the incident to her husband, following which they approached the Adarsh Nagar police station and filed an FIR on July 28.
“The victim initially supported the allegations in her statement before a judicial magistrate but turned hostile during the trial. She deposed that the incident had taken place but refused to identify the four accused,” Jangra said.
However, the prosecution told the court that DNA reports of two suspects matched the semen found on the victim’s clothes. Additionally, the faces of two accused were clearly visible in the video retrieved from the 29-year-old’s phone. Call detail records further established that they had contacted each other and were present at the same location at the time of the crime, and court relied on this evidence to convict them.
