Man acquitted of charge of gangrape as woman turned hostile

New Delhi: A man, accused of gangraping a married woman along with his accomplice, has been acquitted by a Delhi court after the alleged victim turned hostile.

Additional Sessions Judge Virender Bhat freed south west Delhi resident Sachin, who was a neighbour of the woman, of the charges of gangrape under section 376D and criminal intimidation under section 506 of the IPC. His accomplice, Naveen, who was also a neighbour, could not be arrested. "Since the woman has not supported the case of prosecution and there being no other eye witness to the incident, it was found futile to carry on trial of the case any further," the judge said while acquitting Sachin. The court noted that the woman testified before it that she made the statements to the police under pressure from her mother and husband who threatened to divorce her if she didn`t lodge the complaint. "Nothing inculpatory against the accused (Sachin) has come in her testimony. The woman specifically deposed that she took his name under pressure. It is, therefore, beyond any shadow of doubt that he had never committed any sexual assault upon the woman," it said. According to the prosecution, the woman along with her husband and mother had lodged a complaint at Chhawla Police Station here alleging that Sachin and Naveen (not arrested) had raped her on the afternoon of April 6, 2014 when her husband was at work. Her husband, who was working in a Gaushala, told the police that when he returned home, he saw both the men coming out of his house and running away, it said. His wife did not disclose anything to him immediately due to the threats she had received from the two men but later told him everything, it added. Sachin was arrested 10 days later, but Naveen could not be nabbed. The woman, however, resiled from her statement in court saying that both the men were innocent. She said that she had lodged the complaint under pressure from her husband as he had threatened to divorce her. Sachin had pleaded innocence and claimed that he was falsely implicated in the case.