New Delhi: A security guard has been sent to17 years in jail for repeatedly raping a woman and abetting her suicide by a Delhi court, which said his "continued evil and torturous conduct" led the victim to think she had no option but to end her life.
"An act of rape cannot be equated to ordinary petulance or discord which normally takes place in one's daily life. It is a very serious thing to happen with a woman, which shatters her body, soul and conscience. It may sometimes drive a victim to suicide, if she is not properly counselled and has nobody to fall back upon or with whom she can share her plight.
"Rape is not a petty thing to happen to a woman which cannot be expected to induce her to commit suicide. Further the accused cannot take refuge by contending that since all the rape victims do not commit suicide, he cannot be held liable for abetting suicide of the deceased," Additional Sessions Judge Virender Bhat said.
The court held Ajay Kumar, a native of Jammu and Kashmir, guilty of raping and driving the 30-year-old woman to suicide and said "it is, therefore, limpid that the continued evil and torturous conduct of the accused created such situation for the deceased that she was left with no other option except to commit suicide.
"The sexual exploitation, harassment and blackmailing at the hands of the accused had left the deceased with no other alternative but to put an end to her life," the court said.
It awarded 10 and seven years rigorous imprisonment for the offences of rape and abetment to suicide respectively and made it clear that the punishment would run consecutively. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 1.5 lakh on Kumar.
The judge refused any leniency to Kumar, who was known to the victim and was residing in an adjacent servant quarter of farmhouse, saying he sexually exploited the woman and forced her to commit suicide.
"By his torturous acts, he ruined a happily living family. It is on account of his evil, illegal and immoral acts that the complainant lost his wife in the prime of his youth and his minor son lost his mother. He does not deserve any leniency," the court said.
According to the prosecution, the woman was found dead in her house in Kapashera here on May 30 this year. On the basis of a suicide note found at the spot, Kumar was arrested.
It alleged Kumar forcibly established physical relations with the woman several times between November last till May this year and used to threaten her that he would show her obscene videos to everyone if she did not oblige him. When she was unable to narrate the rape incident to anybody due to shame, she committed suicide by hanging.
Kumar had denied the prosecution case and claimed he was falsely implicated.
