A youth, who raped and assaulted a girl with an iron wrench after stalking her for a week, has been sent to 10 years in jail by a Delhi court which said exemplary punishment must be given to curb rising incidents of crime against women.
Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Virender Bhat held Delhi resident Sandeep, 27, guilty of abducting the girl, a college student, raping her, causing hurt and criminally intimidating her under the IPC and also imposed a fine of Rs 60,000 on him.
The judge refused any leniency to Sandeep, saying his young age and poor family background does not persuade the court to take a lenient view in his favour. It said the crime committed by the convict was "intensely grave and serious" in nature.
"In my opinion, every offence, which relates to women and in particular, offence of rape, requires exemplary treatment and court should not show any liberal attitude towards the offender by imposing a meagre sentence on taking into account the young age of the convict and his family background....
"The incidents of rape have seen a sharp increase and there has been a loud public cry against this heinous offence. One way to curb the recurrence of this crime and to take care of societal interest is to impose exemplary sentence upon these offenders which would have a deterrent effect," the judge said.
The court said Sandeep had been stalking the girl for about one week and when she did not show any inclination towards him, he abducted her and raped her inside the car in a violent and gruesome manner.
"The convict beat the girl severally with the wrench and when she lost strength and was not able to resist, he raped her. It appears that the convict had made an elaborated plan with the intention of satisfying his lust upon the prosecutrix," the court said.
As per the police, the incident took place on May 22, 2013, when the girl along with her classmates was returning from her college and Sandeep, who was waiting for her in his car, stopped her near village Kair here.
He called her but the victim did not stop while the other girls ran from there. He then came out of his car and slapped and abused the girl and beat her with a wrench, which was kept in his car, it said.
After being beaten up, she lost strength to resist and Sandeep pulled her in his car and raped her, it said.
