New Delhi: A Gorakhpur court has convicted Parvez Parvaz, a 65-year-old social activist, and another on charges of gangrape and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
Parvaz had, in 2017, moved the high court against Yogi Adityanath, who was then an MP from Gorakhpur, alleging that he had given a hate speech.
A District and Sessions court convicted Parvaz and Mahmood, alias Jumman Baba, and sentenced them to life terms, said Parvaz’s lawyer Miftahul Islam.
District Judge Govind Ballabh Sharma in his judgment that “they took the poor and hapless woman” to an isolated place in the name of jhaad-phoonk during Ramzan and took turns to rape her.
In addition, the court also fined the two accused Rs 25,000 each which would be provided to the victim for her rehabilitation.
Parvaz’s colleague Asad Hayat said they would challenge the conviction in the Allahabad High Court, as there had been a “violation of the principle of natural justice,” because several facts and evidences in the case presented by the accused were discounted.
Parvaz was arrested in September 2018 after a local woman in her 30s accused him and Jumman Baba of gangraping her after luring her to an isolated place near Pandeyhatta area late on June 3 under the pretext of helping her resolve her family problems.
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According to the FIR lodged at the Rajghat police station on June 4, 2018, the woman claimed she came in contact with Mahmood, who is a ‘baba’, at a local shrine. She was looking for help to get her estranged husband under “control” through exorcism.
The Sessions Court judge who pronounced the judgment in the rape case is to retire tomorrow.
-India Legal Bureau