Chandigarh, October 15
Swati Sehgal, Special Judge, Fast-Track Court, Chandigarh, has sentenced Sandeep Singh Rana, a native of Uttarakhand, to 20-year rigorous imprisonment (RI) for raping a 60-year-old mentally ill woman.
The police had registered the case on a complaint filed a minor friend of the woman’s son. He said on May 19, 2018, he went to meet his friend at his house. He called out for his friend. When nobody responded, he peeped through a window and saw a man raping his friend’s mother. He made a video of the man in the act.
Pratibha Bhandari, counsel for the victim, said during the argument that the accused took advantage of the woman’s mental condition. She said during the case that lasted for four years, the victim woman died. Her statement was also not recorded as she was mentally not fit.
After hearing the arguments, the court convicted the accused for the offences punishable under Sections 376 (2) (L) and 452 of the IPC. “The accused, instead of extending a hand of compassion and respect towards the mentally challenged and elderly prosecutrix, chose to treat her as a mode of gratification of his lust. The accused, by his act, has not only broken the law of land but also attacked the sanctity and Sanskars of our enriched traditional society. Such deplorable act of the accused is liable to inexorably and mercilessly punished in the severest term,” observed the court.
