Seven get death for raping, killing mentally-challenged Nepali woman

Rohtak (Haryana), Dec 22: A special court in Haryana's Rohtak town yesterday sentenced seven men to death for raping a mentally-challenged Nepali woman and then murdering her in a brutal manner in February this year.

The court of additional district and sessions judge Seema Singhal ordered capital punishment to all seven men who were convicted last Friday in the gang rape and murder case.

The mentally challenged woman had come to Rohtak for treatment when she was raped and murdered brutally.

The court also imposed a penalty of Rs.1.75 lakh each on all the convicts -- Padam, Pawan, Sunil, Sarwar, Rajesh, Sunil and Manbir -- all of whom are in their 20s.

The woman's mutilated body was found in an agricultural field near Bahu Akbarpur village on the Rohtak-Hisar highway, about 20 km from Rohtak, by villagers on February 4 this year.

The post-mortem report said objects had been thrust into the woman's private parts. Doctors said the woman was gang-raped and tortured, before being brutally killed.

The woman's skull had a fracture and her body parts had been eaten, probably by animals.

The victim went missing on February 1 and her sisters and relatives filed a complaint with police in Rohtak. However, police did not register a case nor did they make prompt investigations to trace her, the family had alleged.

The woman had come to Rohtak from Nepal a couple of months before the incident for treatment at the Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (PGIMS) in Rohtak.

Haryana Police had named nine accused in the case.

While one of them later committed suicide, another accused was a juvenile at the time of the crime and was tried separately.

Haryana Police was under fire from various quarters for not taking action in the matter.

Protests erupted in Rohtak town after the barbaric incident, forcing police to act. The Rohtak-Delhi highway was blocked by protesters. Rohtak is about 75 km from Delhi.

IANS