Bhubaneswar, March 19 (IANS) A court in Odisha has sentenced six people to 10 years in prison for kidnapping and raping a Dalit woman in Bargarh district nearly six years ago, a lawyer said on Thursday.
Additional District and Session Judge at Padampur, Sayed Abdul Kadar Zahir Ahmed, on Wednesday also fined them Rs.20,000 each and said the convicts would have to undergo additional two-year jail term in case they fail to pay the amount, special public prosecutor Bhishmadev Saraf told IANS.
The 24-year-old victim was raped at Paikmal village, about 350 km from here, on May 10, 2009.
The incident had created a political storm as the main accused, Mahesh Agarwal, was a leader of the state's Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and was the chief of the local block.
Another accused Kunal Singh Beriha is a nephew of former state minister and senior BJD leader Bijaya Ranjan Singh Beriha.
According to the police, the woman had gone to the block office to enquire about a government job. Agarwal and his associates promised to help her and took her to a godown, where they allegedly raped her.
She was rescued by the police who reached there following a tip-off. The woman's medical examination had confirmed rape. The BJD had suspended Agarwal from the party after the incident.
The crime branch of the state police which investigated the crime later arrested all the six accused.
Pronouncing all the six persons guilty, the judge handed down the sentence to Agrawal, and his associates Sajjan Agrawal, Kunal Singh Beriha, Pintu Pradhan, Kamalesh Srivastav and Gunanidhi Bag, the lawyer said.
IPL 2020: DCvSRH - Delhi Capitals' fate changed, will history change?
If luck is in cricket, many times the doors of success are opened.
Luck wi
Lucknow
Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath has appealed to the common people to help in thi
Chennai Test: Team India lost due to 5 reasons
After a stellar performance on the Australian grounds, the Indian team has faced defeat in the fi
"PT Usha ji, I am sorry...", after Mahua Moitra MP Priyanka Chaturvedi supports women wrestlers
Wrestlers Protest Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi has come forward in support of the wrest
China On Covid-19 Deaths: China claims – no new deaths occurred after changing the criteria
China said on Wednesday that not a single person died of COVID-19 the previous day, after changin
Will Pakistan be included in the FATF blacklist like North Korea and Iran?
For some time, Pakistan has been struggling to remove its name from the gray list of FATF.
<Amidst the success of Animal, the film has also been the subject of frequent controversies. Many
Aam Aadmi Party's national convenor and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will not appear before the
Former CEO of NITI Aayog Amitabh Kant has described the development of the private sector in the
IPL 2023. The excitement for the 16th season of the Indian Premier League is increasing with each
