A Kota court on Saturday sentenced 13 people to 20 years each in jail and two others to four years each for repeatedly raping a 15-year-old girl for nine days early this year.
Additional Sessions Judge Ashok Chaudhary, heading a special court set up under the POCSO Act, also sentenced a woman to four years rigorous imprisonment for abducting the girl from her home here and taking her to Jhalawar where she sold her to several people for raping her.
While sentencing the 16 people, the court acquitted 12 others allegedly involved in the crime. Four underage offenders are still facing the trial in the case separately at the local Juvenile Justice Board.
While sentencing the convicts, ASJ Chaudhary also imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 each on those jailed for 20 years and Rs 7,000 on those sentenced to four years. The court delivered the judgment within nine months of the commission of the crime following its investigation under the Rajasthan Police Department’s Officer Scheme.
The FIR in the gang-rape case of the teenaged girl was lodged at Suket Police station on March 6 this year on her complaint that she had been lured away from home in Kota by a woman Bulbul alias Pooja Jain on the pretext of buying her a bag.
Jain took her to Jhalawar where she handed her to several people one after one who raped her over nine days, the girl alleged in her complaint.
After completing the probe into the case, the Kota police submitted a 1750-page charge sheet on May 7 to the court which held the trial equally expeditiously and delivered his judgement on Saturday, prosecution counsel Prem Narayan Namdev said.
