A Delhi court on Friday sentenced expelled Bharatiya Janata Party politician Kuldeep Singh Sengar to 10 years in prison for the death of the father of the woman who accused him of raping her, PTI reported. He was last week convicted of culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
The woman’s father was arrested in an illegal arms case, in which he was later found to have been framed, in April 2018. He died in judicial custody in Unnao on April 9, a day after his daughter tried to commit suicide outside Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath’s house as no action had been taken against Sengar. A few days later, a murder case was filed against Sengar, his brother and nine others.
The postmortem report of the 55-year-old listed multiple abrasions near the abdomen, buttocks, thighs, above and below knee joints and arms – indicating that his death may have been caused by a physical assault. His gastrointestinal tract had also been severely infected. The father was in judicial custody from April 4, after he got into a fight with the aides of the former MLA’s brother, Atul Sengar.
Sengar was recently convicted of raping the woman in 2017. She was a minor at the time. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in December and was also ordered to pay Rs 25 lakh as compensation to the complainant. He was convicted of rape under the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act for offence by a public servant committing penetrative sexual assault against a child. Multiple cases have been registered in connection with the woman and the crimes committed against her.
The woman was involved in a car crash in July in which two of her relatives – one of them was an important witness in the rape case – were killed. The complainant and her lawyer were also severely injured, and the family had alleged Sengar was behind the car crash. There is an ongoing conspiracy case in the matter.
The following month, the woman was airlifted from Lucknow to New Delhi for treatment at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. The district court then asked her lawyer to make arrangements for the woman and her family to stay in the Capital.
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