Srinagar: A Srinagar court has sentenced a railway employee to ten years imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 150,000 in a 2012 case involving the kidnapping, wrongful confinement and rape of a minor girl at Hamray Railway Station, Pattan, Baramulla.
Bringing to a close a trial that lasted nearly 14 years, Additional Sessions Judge Srinagar, Farooq Ahmad Bhat, found the accused Imtiyaz Ahmad Rather, a resident of Gotapora, Budgam, guilty under Sections 363 (kidnapping), 376 (rape) and 342 (wrongful confinement) of the Ranbir Penal Code (RPC).
Judge Rather recorded in his judgment “I am of the considered view that the aggravating circumstances overweigh the mitigating circumstances”.
He held that the offence has been committed with the minor girl, that too by a person who was an employee in the Railway station, obliged to perform his official duties, and that he also used the government accommodation allotted to him for the commission of the said offence.
Accordingly, the convict Imtiyaz Ahmad Rat, presently employed with Railways at Hamray, was sentenced for the commission of offence punishable under Section 376 RPC to undergo rigorous Imprisonment for a period of 10 years and to pay a fine of Rs. 1,00,000.
For the commission of offence punishable under Section 363 RPC, the convict was sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of five years and to pay a fine of Rs 50,000.
For the commission of offence punishable under Section 342 RPC he was sentenced to undergo rigorous Imprisonment for a period of one year.
All the substantive sentences imposed upon the convict shall run concurrently.
According to the prosecution, the incident occurred in July 2012 when the victim, then a school-going minor, travelled by train and reached Hamray Railway Station.
It said that the accused, who was working with the Railways at the time, induced the girl to accompany him to a railway quarter on the pretext of helping her arrange a return ticket. It alleged that she was wrongfully confined there for about two days and subjected to sexual assault.
The victim later managed to escape and reported the matter to the police, leading to the registration of a case at Railway Police Station Hamray. During the investigation, police recovered material evidence from the railway quarter identified by the victim.
The court relied upon the testimony of the prosecutrix, medical evidence and documentary records, including school documents establishing that the victim was around 13 years old at the time of the incident. Medical examination conducted shortly after the occurrence also formed part of the evidence considered during trial.
During the proceedings, the defence challenged the prosecution case on several grounds, including alleged inconsistencies in witness statements and questions regarding the investigation.
However, the court observed that minor discrepancies were natural and did not affect the core of the prosecution case.
In its judgment, the court held that the testimony of the prosecutrix was trustworthy, consistent and sufficiently corroborated by other evidence on record. The court concluded that the prosecution had succeeded in proving the charges beyond reasonable doubt.
Following the conviction, the court directed that the accused, who had been on bail during the trial, be taken into custody and lodged in Central Jail Srinagar.
