Korba district court headquarters, where the case was heard
PHOTO: KORBA COUNTY COURT
Sheet Indian Express On January 23, it was reported that a court in India had just sentenced five men to death in the gang rape and murder of a young ethnic minority girl and also murdered two members of the victim’s family.
According to the court in Korba city (Chhattisgarh state), the defendants did not show “remorse” for killing the victims of the Pahadi Korwa tribe in Chhattisgarh, classified as a particularly vulnerable tribal group in the state.
The defendants include Santram Manjhwar (49 years old), Abdul Jabbar (34 years old), Anil Kumar Sarthi (24 years old), Pardeshi Ram (39 years old) and Anand Ram Panika (29 years old). The sixth defendant, Umashanakar Yadav (26 years old), received a life sentence due to insufficient evidence for the crime of rape, according to special prosecutor Sunil Kumar Mishra.
The prosecutor said the incident occurred on January 29, 2021 when the main defendant in the case, Manjhwar, and another defendant offered to drive the victim and her family, including father, mother and two grandchildren, when They are waiting at a bus stop.
The family was divided into two groups, in which the victim’s mother and a grandchild sat in one car, and one car carried the victim, her father and the other child. Instead of being transported home, the second group was driven to another village, where the defendant had previously been drinking.
The first group was abandoned in the middle of the road and the defendants in that car returned with their accomplices, raped the young girl in front of the victim’s father, before stoning him and the baby to death.
When the police searched for the three people four days later, they discovered the girl alive but unconscious. The victim died on the way to the hospital.
In the ruling, judge Mamta Bhojwani called the defendants’ actions “inhumane”, “extremely depraved and horrifying”, done with “the purpose of satisfying personal desires”, and noted that note that victims belonging to tribal groups are particularly vulnerable.
“It is brutal and cowardly because they killed 3 innocent and weak people to satisfy their desires, this has shocked the collective conscience of the entire society. Therefore, this court has no choice.” There is no other choice but to choose the exception of the death penalty instead of the general rule of life imprisonment,” according to the judge.
