3 get life term for raping 20-year-old woman in Noida in 2018

The police rescued the woman after she escaped from them in 2018 and caught the convicts soon afterwards. She then filed a first information report in the case at the Sector 39 police station

The additional sessions court in Gautam Budh Nagar sentenced three men to life imprisonment on Tuesday for raping a 20-year-old woman and forcing her into prostitution in Noida in 2018.

According to the prosecution, the woman told police that she was brought to Delhi from Sikkim by a woman, Monika, under the guise of finding employment. (Representational Image)

The police rescued the woman after she escaped from the men in 2018 and caught the accused soon afterwards. She then filed a first information report in the case at the Sector 39 police station.

According to the prosecution, the woman told police that she was brought to Delhi from Sikkim by a woman, Monika, under the guise of finding employment. “Monika told me that she worked in Delhi. She promised to find me a job for ₹10,000- ₹15,000 per month, so I trusted her and travelled to Delhi with her. I ate and slept in her Saket Nagar room, but Monika had left when I woke up the next morning. Instead, there were three men in the room. They claimed Monika had sold me to them,” the woman said in her complaint to police.

“The three men took turns raping me. They kept me in the small room and threatened me with dire consequences if I protested,” she said in her complaint.

According to Dharmendra Jaint, additional district government counsel, Gautam Budh Nagar, the convicts Sameer alias Maksood, Omkar Kshatriya, and Anoop Gupta are in their mid-20s.

“According to her complaint and court statements, the woman claimed that on February 5, 2018, the three men drove her to Noida to meet a client. On the way, they pulled over to the side of the road and began drinking. Taking the opportunity, the woman escaped on foot. She ran to a police response vehicle (PRV) a little distance away and informed them about her ordeal. She then took a police team to where she had escaped, and officers detained the three men,” said Jaint.

Following the woman’s complaint, police officers registered a case at Sector 39 police station under sections 376 (rape), 506 (criminal conspiracy), and relevant sections of the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956, against the three men and Monika.

In court, the men denied the charges and agreed to stand trial. Investigators are yet to find Monika despite looking for her for the past five years.

During the trial, sub-inspector Sahab Singh told the court that the woman told his team that the three men who kidnapped her were in a Renault Duster. “We arrested the three men and seized their car,” he said. Investigators also noted that the three men forged the woman’s identity card. “When the men sent the woman to a client, they used to give her that forged ID and told her to show it if anyone asked,” Jaint said.

The convicts’ attorney, Harishchandra Verma, called a defence witness, Prem Darja Sherpa, who said Omkar knew the victim. “She’d borrowed money from Omkar. She filed a case against Omkar and his friends when he demanded his money back,” he told the court.

Verma also told the court that the allegations against the three men were false. He said the prosecution had failed to apprehend Monika, despite naming her in the FIR.

The court heard both sides and determined that the prosecution had proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the convicts forced the woman into prostitution against her will.

On Tuesday, Ranvijay Pratap Singh, additional sessions judge in Gautam Budh Nagar, sentenced the three men to life imprisonment and fined them ₹50,000 under Indian Penal Code sections 376/120 (rape and criminal conspiracy). “They are also sentenced to two years in prison and a ₹5,000 fine under section 506 (criminal intimidation), life imprisonment and a ₹50,000 fine each under section 6 of the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956; two years in prison and a ₹1000 fine under Section 4, and 14 years in prison and a ₹2,000 fine under section 5 of the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act,” the court said.