Maternal uncles get life imprisonment
CHANDIGARH: A fast-track trial court in Chandigarh sentenced two brothers to life imprisonment till death on Thursday for raping their 10-year-old niece, who gave birth to a child in August after the Supreme Court dismissed her abortion plea.
The court of additional district and sessions judge Poonam R Joshi imposed a fine of ₹305,000 on the convicts in the case that made headlines in India and abroad.
The prosecution pleaded for a life term, calling it an instance of “rarest of rare” case as the men had broken the trust of the family and the child. The defence, however, called for mercy and said the convicts were the sole earning members of their families.
The girl was found to be 30 weeks pregnant when her mother took her to a hospital after she complained of stomachache this July. Her parents approached a local court with a plea to abort the foetus but it dismissed their petition as doctors said the procedure would be too risky. Later, the Supreme Court also refused to allow an abortion on similar grounds.
India’s anti-abortion law prohibits medical termination of foetuses above 20 weeks, except when the mother’s life is at grave risk. When her pregnancy was discovered, the girl accused an uncle, her mother’s cousin, who
worked as a guard in a local hotel.
Police arrested him but the case turned on its head after the DNA samples of the girl’s child didn’t match with those of the older uncle, a father of three.
More than a fortnight later, the man’s younger brother was arrested and he turned out to be the main culprit. The older man, who has a teenage daughter and 11-year-old son, broke down when the verdict was pronounced but the brothers kept quiet when asked if they had anything to say.