New Delhi: A man has been sentenced to seven years in jail for raping a girl on a false promise of marriage by a special fast track court here which noted that crime against women was rising and there was an "urgent need" to curb it.
The special fast track court, set up to try exclusively cases of sexual offences against women, also said that convict Vijay Kumar, a resident of Timarpur, was not entitled to a lesser punishment on the ground that he had got married in 2011 and the life of his wife will be ruined.
"Rather, the fact which emerges from the consideration of circumstances of the case in its totality is that the woman to whom the convict married on March 11, 2011 was also kept in the dark about his earlier liaison with the prosecutrix (victim) and he cannot be held entitled to any benefit at this score.
"Moreover, offences against women are on a rise and there is an urgent need to curb this tendency by awarding deterrent punishment to perpetrators of this grave offence," Additional Sessions Judge Kaveri Baweja said.
She also imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 on Kumar.
According to the prosecution, the girl had approached the police on March 11, 2011 saying that she was repeatedly raped by Kumar for about five years when she was a minor on a false promise of marriage.
She told the police that the accused used to forcefully make physical contact with her by mixing stupefying substance in her drink and after that assured her that he would marry her.
However on March 11, 2011, she came to know to that he was getting married to some other girl that day and lodged a complaint against him with the police, it said.
During the trial, Kumar had claimed that he was falsely implicated in the case.
Kumar claimed he was friendly with the girl but there was no physical relation between them.
The court, however, said it was clear from the girl`s statement that Kumar had physical relations with her after promising her marriage.
PTI
