A court in Delhi convicted two men for raping a five-year-old girl in Delhi in 2013, saying that the case had shaken the society’s “collective conscience”, PTI reported. The court will announce the quantum of punishment on January 30.
“In our society, minor girls are worshipped as goddesses,” the court set up under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act said. “The child, who was just five years old, experienced exceptional depravity and extreme brutality.”
On April 15, 2013, convicts Manoj Shah and Pradeep Kumar abducted and brutally raped the child in a locality in east Delhi. The minor was rescued after nearly 40 hours on April 17, 2013. Shah was arrested in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur city, while Kumar was picked up from Darbhanga in the same year.
The chargesheet in the case was filed on May 24, 2013 and the court framed charges against them on July 11, 2013. The incident had occurred four months after the 2012 Delhi gangrape case and sparked widespread outrage.
The court of Additional Sessions Judge Naresh Kumar Malhotra said that the crime was committed “in a most grotesque and revolting manner”, reported NDTV.
The father of the child said he was satisfied with the court’s verdict. “Though the trial should have been completed in two years, we are happy we got justice after six years,” he told PTI.
Meanwhile, one of the convicts tried to snatch the mobile phones of journalists on the way out of the court, reported ANI.
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