Survivor turns hostile but court sentences 3 rapists to 20 years rigorous imprisonment

  

Seven years after a woman was gang-raped by three men in her village, a fast track court sentenced them to 20 years’ rigorous imprisonment even though she turned hostile during the course of the trial. She had spoken of the threats she had received from the men, the court said, and the statement which came after that could not, therefore, be taken at face value.

“The statement in favour of the accused cannot negate those made earlier. What she said in her complaint to the police, statement to the magistrate and the doctor (who examined her) remain consistent. It is only during cross-examination that she changed her statement,” additional district and sessions judge Nirdosh Kumar said in the verdict. “She had clearly said earlier that the men had threatened to kill her if she told anyone.”

On October 28, 2014, the woman had stepped out to get fodder for her cattle. “Around noon, three men from her village, Chaman (Singh), Omvir (Singh) and Amit (Singh) came by, abusing her verbally and asking her where she’d hidden a sack of sugar. When she said she didn’t know anything, they accosted her. Chaman threw her to the ground and pointed a gun at her. Then they gang-raped her,” the prosecution had told the court.

She went home and told her mother-in-law. They filed a police complaint and the three men were booked for gang-rape, criminal intimidation and robbery. In 2016, the court proceedings began. The woman then recorded her statement before a magistrate under Section 164 of the CrPC, in which she said she had been gang-raped, her gold earrings ripped off her ears and threatened against telling anyone “or she would be killed”. When she was cross-examined four months later, she said she didn’t have her glasses on when she was gang-raped and couldn’t identify the men.

“But the judge, Nirdosh Kumar, referred to several cases and Law Commission observations on why witnesses turn hostile. He mentioned that ‘threat and intimidation’ is one of the main reasons for hostility of witnesses in cases of sexual offences against women in India,” additional district government counsel Santosh Srivastava told TOI. “The court also said she is a widow from a rural area and has no one to stand by her. In such a situation, it is easy for the accused to pressure her into backing off.”

 

The court said, “It is evident that a helpless, poor widow was gang-raped at gunpoint … The men are convicted under sections 376(g) (gang rape) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC … The survivor must be charged under Section 344 of the CrPC (giving false evidence).” The convicts have to pay Rs 20,000 each as a fine, failing which a year’s imprisonment will be added to their sentences.

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(With input from news agency language)

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