A special court in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras on Thursday sentenced a 20-year-old man to life imprisonment but acquitted the three other accused men of all charges, marking yet another twist in the sensational gangrape-and-murder of a Dalit woman that shocked the nation in 2020.
Special judge Trilok Pal Singh sentenced Sandeep Sisodia, the main accused in the case, for culpable homicide not amounting to murder and under the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. It also imposed a fine of ₹50,000 on him. But the court acquitted him of murder and rape charges. It also cleared the other three men – Lovekush, Ravi and Ram Kumar – of all charges.
“As the victim was interacting even after eight days of the incident, it cannot be stated that the accused wanted to kill her…the evidence doesn’t prove that she was raped,” said judge Singh in a 167-page order.
Family members of the Dalit victim said they will move the high court, and added that they decided to not immerse her ashes until all four men are convicted. “We have decided to challenge trial court’s order in Allahabad high court, seeking stay on the order, and conviction for all four,” said the victim’s brother.
MS Pundheer, who represented all the four accused men in court, said Sisodia was also innocent and his family would appeal in the high court against the conviction. “We will appeal in the high court against the conviction,” he added.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed the charge sheet in the case on December 2020. It said that the victim, who hailed from the Valmiki caste, was allegedly gang-raped by four men from the Thakur caste on September 14.
The woman was left partially paralysed after the alleged assault. The victim was rushed to a hospital in nearby Aligarh town, where she also recorded her statement. After her condition deteriorated, she was shifted to New Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital on September 28, 2020.
She succumbed to her injuries the next day, triggering protests by Dalit groups in Delhi and elsewhere in the country. In the early hours of Wednesday, police drove the victim’s body and family back to Hathras, where the woman was forcibly cremated at 2.30am, sparking anger and allegations from opposition parties that the authorities were trying to bury evidence. The incident sparked nationwide protests, forced politicians to make a beeline for the village, and prompted the state government and the Supreme Court to step in and steer the investigation,
Her family members had claimed that the cremation, which took place well past midnight, was without their consent and they were not allowed to bring home the body one last time.
Days after the crime, the state government constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the case, but the matter was handed over to CBI on October 10. On October 27 that year, the Supreme Court asked the Allahabad high court to monitor the probe.
