Former BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar has been convicted in the 2017 Unnao rape case by the Tis Hazari court in Delhi.
District Judge Dharmesh Sharma convicted Sengar of rape under the Indian Penal Code and POCSO Act for the offence of a public servant committing penetrative sexual assault against a child .
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Sharma, however, acquitted co-accused Shashi Singh of all charges. Sharma pronouncing the verdict, rapped the CBI for the “inordinate delay in the case”,
. The court will hear arguments on quantum of sentence on Tuesday.
The survivor was kidnapped and raped by Sengar in 2017 when she was a minor, the court ruled. The trial in the high profile case was held in-camera after the Supreme Court transferred the matter from Unnao to the National Capital.
The court also rejected the defence objections that the crime was reported much later and that it was orchestrated by the survivor’s uncle. The court observed that the survivor did not “utter any word” in view of the threat to her life and her family.
The court had on 9 August framed charges against Sengar and Singh under sections 120 b (criminal conspiracy), 363 (kidnapping), 366 (kidnapping or inducing a woman to compel for marriage), 376 (rape) and other relevant sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
The judge heard the case on a day-to-day basis from 5 August after it was transferred to Delhi from a court in Lucknow on Supreme Court’s directions.
A special court was also held at AIIMS hospital in Delhi to record the statement of the rape survivor, who was admitted there after she was air-lifted from a hospital in Lucknow.
The woman and her family is provided CRPF security as per the apex court’s orders. They have now been shifted to a rented accommodation in the national capital with the assistance of the Delhi Commission for Women .
