CBI QUESTIONS FEROZEPUR RANGE IG
BURHANPUR (MP): A local court has sentenced a man to death for raping and killing a woman while he was out on bail after being convicted earlier for a murder.
While awarding the death penalty to Prakash Lahase (34) on Thursday, Sessions Judge of Special Court Rajesh Nandeshwar observed, “The case falls in the category of the rarest of rare cases. Such persons are like gangrene in society which has to be removed from the body to save it.”
Quoting the judge, public prosecutor Shantaram Wankhede said, “The judiciary has a duty to remove the accused from the society. Criminals will have a free run if they are not punished properly, and the fear in them of deterrent will end.”
The public prosecutor said that judge Nandeshwar sentenced Lahase to death under Section 302 (murder) and awarded him life imprisonment on two different counts -- Section 376 (2) (sexual assault) and 364 (kidnapping to kill) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
In 38 days, the court examined 38 witnesses before pronouncing the verdict, he said.
Prosecutor Wankhede said that Lahase had kidnapped the 30-year-old victim on May 17 this year from Khadkod village, some eight kilometres from the district headquarters.
“He raped the woman at a deserted place and killed her by crushing her head with a stone. He then disposed of the body in a well,” Wankhede said.
Judge Nandeshwar, while delivering his verdict, also said that women were feeling “extremely helpless and insecure” following a spurt in rape cases, Wankhede said.
At least 10 rapists have been awarded the death sentence by various courts in the state since February this year.
Under fire for growing number of rape cases, the MP government had brought a Bill in December last year, a first for the country, prescribing the death penalty for those convicted of raping minors below the age of 12.
It also set up 50 fast track courts to speed up the trial of those accused of rape.
According to statistics of the National Crime Records Bureau released in November last year, MP accounted for the the highest number of rape cases at 4,882 out of a total of 38,947 recorded nationwide in 2016. The figure of 4,882 included 2,479 cases involving minor victims.
Madhya Pradesh recorded the highest number of rape cases (4,391) in 2015 too, according to the NCRB report. FEROZEPUR: A CBI team questioned IG Ferozepur Range here in connection with a complained filed by a former SSP, against whom he had ordered re-initiation of action in an old case pertaining to the alleged harassment of a revenue official, agency sources said on Friday.
A team of the central investigative agency reached here last evening and accompanied by the SSP Ferozepur, they went to IG Gurinder Singh Dhillon’s official residence here, the sources said.
The CBI sleuths continued their probe till early morning. The team had also gone to the IG’S Patiala residence on Thursday evening, they said.
Former SSP Shiv Kumar Sharma had recently filed the complaint against the IG alleging that a resident of Ludhiana of allegedly demanded bribe of Rs 22 lakh on behalf of Dhillon to let him off the hook in the harassment case.
Sharma alleged that he paid money to the Ludhiana resident. He is the main accused in a nine-year-old case of alleged harassment and frame up of revenue official Mohan Singh Patwari.
The IG had recently ordered re-initiation of action against Sharma in the case.
The CBI arrested a middleman in Ludhiana allegedly while he was receiving a bribe of Rs 10 lakh on behalf of the inspector general, officials said.
The team took away the relevant documents related to the ongoing investigation being conducted by the SIT into the revenue official case which Dhillon was heading, the CBI sources said.
Later, talking to reporters today, Dhillon said attempts were to sabotage the ongoing investigations in the case which was registered following a probe by a senior IAS officer.
Regarding the complaint lodged by Sharma to the CBI, Dhillon said the accused were trying to intimidate him since he was the monitoring officer in the case
“We will not allow the investigations, which are at a conclusive stage, to be hampered by such false complaints,” he said.
He said the SIT was conducting a probe on merit with all honesty, based on facts that emerged during the course of investigation, all of which was brought on record.
When contacted, Mohan Singh Patwari said the CBI compliant was lodged to put pressure on Dhillon who was conducting the probe with honesty. Parsi community members greet each other on the occasion of Parsi new year at Fire temple, in Mumbai on Friday