Srinagar, Nov 23: A local Court has sentenced a man to a rigorous concurrent imprisonment of five and seven years under different sections of RPC for raping a girl.
 Principal District and sessions Judge Srinagar, Kaneez Fatima awarded the punishment to Bilal Ahmad Dar after hearing the arguments from the public prosecutor A A Teli and the counsel for the accused.
 “Keeping in view the principle that sentence awarded has to be commensurate to the nature of the crime, the accused is sentenced rigorous imprisonment for five year under section 366 of RPC besides rigorous imprisonment for seven years under the section 376 of RPC,” reads the Court order. The Court observed that both the sentences awarded to the convict will run concurrently.
 “The accused is also directed to pay a fine of Rs 2000 and in case he failed to pay the fine, he will invite a simple imprisonment of three months,” the Court observed.
 The Court pronounced the quantum of punishment against the convict who was accused of kidnapping and raping a girl.
 While pronouncing the award of punishment, the Court held, “It cannot be doubted that rape is a heinous crime which destroys the life of the victim and the society treats the victim with contempt and she faces ostracism and the punishment should be strict and severe”.
 The Court observed that the well being and rehabilitation is the concern of the law and in such cases justice should be done to the victim. “The rapist should be awarded strict punishment in order to curb the growing incidence of rape,” the Court said.
 “I have come to the conclusion that in this case the grave nature of the offence far outweighs any need for leniency for the accused as rape is an offence against society and completely destroys the physical, mental and social well being of the victim,” Kaneez Fatima observed.
 While awarding the sentence to the accused, the Court referred to various judgments of the Supreme Court and High Courts and Trial Courts that have awarded punishments to the accused in similar cases.
 The court convicted the accused after the prosecution produced the witnesses in support of its contention and the medical report submitted by the doctors’ vis-à-vis the rape.

Lastupdate on : Wed, 23 Nov 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 23 Nov 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Thu, 24 Nov 2011 00:00:00 IST