Aurangabad : The Ambajogai Sessions Court in Beed district awarded life sentence to two youths for raping a teenage girl and 10 years Rigorous Imprisonment (RI) to the lady home guard for assisting them committing the heinous crime. The convicts have been identified as Balasaheb Somnath Dhakane alias Amol (23), Atmaram Dayaram Munde (24) and Asha Kundlik Chate (37, all residents of Kej tehsil in Beedi district). The victim was a 19-year-old Dalit girl and was pursuing nursing course. The judgment was delivered by the Additional Sessions Judge, R A Gaikwad, on Monday.
The charges of sexual assault were established against Amol and Atmaram while Asha tried her best to suppress the crime. The crime took place around 7:30 pm on February 21, 2012 at a roadside farm in the vicinity of village Lahuri in Kej tehsil of Beed district.
Imparting details of the much hyped crime the public prosecutor, A V Kulkarni, told FPJ that the girl used to walk daily 10 kms for reaching her nursing college from home. As usual she was returning home when Amol and Atmaram offered her a lift in their jeep till her village. Seeing some passengers inside the jeep, the girl too got into the jeep, but the shrewd jeep driver and owner dropped all other passengers except the girl. Later they took the jeep at a secluded place in-stead of her village and raped her there in the farm. On reaching home the girl narrated the nightmarish incident to her parents. The prosecutor in the case, Kulkarni, examined 17 witnesses and on hearing prosecution and defence the judge delivered judgment on Monday.
Sudhir Dharmadhakari
