Pune: A 45-year-old labour contractor has been sentenced to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment (RI) for raping a minor girl in 2012 in Talegaon, about 35 km from here. His wife who was co-accused for beating and confining the girl was acquitted.
Additional Sessions Judge Madhuri Deshpande also imposed a fine of Rs 13,000 on the convict Ayub Kasim Patel, a resident of Talegaon. The judgement was delivered on July 11.
Around 2.30 pm on June 22, 2012, Patel noticed four girls picking waste near his house. He then allegedly forced them into a tempo, but one of them managed to escape. Patel took the rest of the girls to the building in Warale village. Patel confined them in a flat and threatened to kill them if they raised an alarm. He raped one of the girls, then aged 14 at night.
On the next day morning, the girls shouted for help and some women from nearby contacted them and then a complaint was lodged. He assaulted the girls accusing them of stealing pipes from his construction plates and also forced the husband of one of the girls to pay him Rs 1,500. The rape was confirmed in a medical examination of the victim at Sassoon General Hospital.
The Judge observed, “It is also worth mentioning that according to defence, the victim had stolen plates from his construction site, but no recovery is made of plates from victims. The defence has not proved about stolen plates of Rs two lakh. With regard to the stealing of plates by the victim, no report is lodged and plates are not seized from the victim.”
