Danish woman gang rape: Delhi HC upholds trial court verdict of life term for 5 convicts

The Delhi High Court on Monday upheld a 2016 trial court verdict of life imprisonment for five convicts in the case of gang-rape of a Danish woman in the capital in January 2014. A Bench of Justices S. Muralidhar and I. S. Mehta dismissed the appeals moved by the convicts — Mahender alias Ganja, Mohammed Raja, Raju Bhajje, Arjun and Raju Chhaka. The trial court had convicted them for the offences under sections 376 (D) (gang rape), 395 (dacoity), 366 (kidnapping), 342 (wrongful confinement), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 34 (common intention) of the IPC. The court, while sentencing them, had said the convicts “levelled a stigma on the face of the country.” Rejecting the plea for a lenient punishment by counsel for the accused, the trial court had said: “They do not deserve any leniency. She had been subjected to such inhuman act continuously for five long hours, and during this period she was given beatings when she tried to save herself. Accused persons did not show any mercy when she was asking them not to rape her as she had AIDS.” The Police had charged the accused persons with robbing and gang-raping the woman at knife- point after dragging her to a deserted place near the Divisional Railway Officers’ Club, which is located about a few hundred metres from the New Delhi Railway Station. There were nine accused, including three juveniles, in the case but one of the accused died at the fag end of the trial.