06 November,2014 01:05 PM IST | | Sailee Dhayalkar
Sessions court found them guilty of violently assaulting the 32-year-old woman in her shanty near Matunga railway line, on March 15 last year
A sessions court on Wednesday sentenced five rapists to 20 years of imprisonment for gang-raping a 32-year-old woman after storming in her house last year.
The convicts are Rohidas Gaikwad (19), Shahid Shaikh (20), Ganesh Ingale (20), Imran Shaikh (19) and Ganesh Gurav. Two more accused in the case, both juveniles, were caught in July earlier this year and sent to a correctional facility. The crime occurred at the survivor's shanty near Matunga railway yard, and the five accused had been on trial for a year.
They were found guilty under sections 376D (gangrape, which entails a punishment of 20 years in jail), 377 (unnatural offences; 10 years in jail and R5,000 fine), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt; 1 year and R1,000), 450 (house-trespass to commit offence; 7 years and R5,000) and 506 (criminal intimidation; 1 year and R500) of the Indian Penal code.
A total of 11 witnesses, including the survivor, were examined by public prosecutor Nilima Kasture. The survivor narrated the incident to the women's court judge, Vrushali Joshi, and identified her rapists.
She also told the court that they threatened her not to speak to anyone about what she had been through.
On March 15, 2013, around 6 pm, two juveniles went to the victim's shanty near Matunga railway tracks and told her husband (36) that they wanted "to sleep with your wife". He asked them to leave before threatening to call the police.
Again, around 11:30 pm the same day, the young duo returned, but this time they had five more people in tow. The door to the house was open and the septet barged in the shanty while the couple was asleep.
They dragged the husband out and bashed him up with bamboo sticks, and for two hours after, took turns raping her. They threatened to finish her if she let out a cry.
After the horror, the badly battered husband was unable to walk to the police station. So the couple, stunned and frightened with the events of the night, waited until morning to register a complaint. They went to the Dadar railway police, who sent the woman for medical tests.
The case was then transferred to the Matunga police, who lodged a complaint and wasted no time in catching the seven accused one after the other. Both the juveniles, who were incidentally known to the woman's husband, were caught in July this year and remanded for three years in a correctional house.
