Two get 20-year jail for rape during Muzaffarnagar riots

A Muzaffarnagar court on Tuesday sentenced two people to 20 years’ rigorous imprisonment for the gangrape of a woman in Shamli during the 2013 communal riots.

Additional District Judge Anjani Kumar Singh, while convicting the two accused Maheshvir and Sikander, in her 89-page order, said that they committed rape against a “helpless woman when she along with her son was fleeing through the sugarcane field to save her life” during the riots.

The incident took place on September 8, 2013, as the riots that started in Muzaffarnagar spread to neighbouring areas. During the riots, clashes between two communities led to the killing of more than 60 people and the displacement of more than 50,000.

Significantly, Tuesday’s conviction order came just months after the Supreme Court had passed a direction to take up the matter on priority and said the hearing must be conducted on a day-to-day basis. The apex court’s March 13 order came on the plea moved by advocate Vrinda Grover, the victim’s lawyer.

In its order, the fast-track court, stating that the key evidence — the victim’s statement — was of “sterling quality”, emphasised that it did not find any contradiction in her statement regarding the incident of rape. The victim had said that she and her son were alone as her husband had gone to see a doctor, and that is when rumours spread that a person was killed near Badi mosque, triggering communal riots.

The victim had further deposed that, in order to save herself during the riots, she escaped from her home along with her son, and decided to take shelter in the sugarcane fields. The court said that the incident of gangrape took place in the field. “… the manner in which the victim has described the whole incident, there is no contradiction in it,” the court said while convicting the accused of gangrape under the IPC.