A special court in Lucknow sentenced Gayatri Prajapati and two others to life in prison for gang-raping a woman and her teenage daughter. A punishment of Rs 2 lakh was also levied on each prisoner by the special court for legislators, which was presided over by Additional Sessions Judge PK Rai.
Judge Rai found Prajapati and his colleagues guilty of gang-raping the mother and her young daughter on Wednesday. Prajapati was a major member in the former Akhilesh Yadav government. The prosecution had been able to establish the accusations against them beyond a reasonable doubt, according to the statement.
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The punishment for gang-rapping a young girl is outlined in Section 6 of the POCSO Act. The penalties vary from a minimum of ten years in prison to life in prison. Prajapati was arrested in March 2017 while serving in Akhilesh Yadav’s cabinet as the minister of transport and mines. Since then, he has been imprisoned. The lawyer for Prajapati and others had earlier pleaded with the court for leniency in giving the sentence at the hearing on Friday on the quantum of punishment.
Judge Rai had acquitted four others, Vikas Verma, Roopeshwar, Amrendra Singh, alias Pintu, and Chandrapal owing to a lack of evidence while convicting the trio on Wednesday. While detaining the trio, the court also ordered the Lucknow police commissioner to investigate why the rape victim and two other witnesses repeatedly altered their testimony during the trial.
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The victim first backed her accusation of gang-rape in the FIR during her deposition before the court, but she then recanted during cross-examination. However, while convicting the three, the court relied on her earlier deposition. On the orders of the Supreme Court, which had passed its decision on the woman’s appeal against the police inactivity over her allegation, the FIR against the minister was lodged at the Gautampalli police station here on February 18, 2017. The lady alleged that she had been raped by the minister and his associates since October 2014, and she decided to file a complaint when they also targeted her little daughter in July 2016.
