New Delhi: A sessions court on Thursday sentenced two maternal uncles of the 10-year-old Chandigarh rape victim to life imprisonment.
The court held the two brothers guilty of raping the girl who gave birth to a girl child in August after the Supreme court rejected a plea seeking a permission for an abortion.
Additional District and Sessions Judge Poonam R Joshi, while pronouncing the quantum of sentence, also imposed a fine of Rs 3.05 lakh each in the case.
"The court today pronounced life imprisonment for both the brothers in the rape case," said counsel Manjit Singh, who represented the elder brother. Public prosecutor Atul Sethi said, "They will stay in jail till death."
"This is a very good decision and the verdict will be a lesson for those who indulge in such heinous crimes," he said. Sethi said Rs 6 lakh would be given as compensation to the victim while Rs 10,000 would go to the state.
In September 2017, to everyone's shock, the DNA sample of the newborn daughter didn't match the rape accused, the victim's elder maternal uncle. This shocking revelation came after the forensic report was submitted to the Punjab and Haryana Court, compelling the police to investigate the case further.
A fresh DNA test showed the younger maternal uncle to be the father of the child. The police maintained that both maternal uncles had sexually exploited their niece.
The 10-year-old, a student at a Chandigarh government school, had complained of stomach pain in July 2017. The medical examination disclosed that she was six months pregnant. The Chandigarh police had filed an FIR against her maternal uncle for having sexually abused the girl repeatedly over a period of time.
The family wanted the foetus aborted, but the advanced stage of pregnancy and medical reasons couldn't have allowed that. The family knocked on the doors of Supreme Court, seeking the permission to abort the foetus, but the plea was rejected.
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