6 remaining accused sentenced to life term in 1992 Ajmer rape-blackmail case

AJMER: A Pocso court in Ajmer sentenced six remaining accused in the notorious 1992 Ajmer rape and blackmail case to life imprisonment on Tuesday. The court also imposed a penalty of Rs 5 lakh on each of the convicts. The Rs 30 lakh collected from the six convicts will be distributed equally to the rape survivors.

Pocso court judge Ranjan Singh also ordered compensation to be paid to the rape survivors by directing the district legal aid authority to deposit Rs 7 lakh in the bank accounts of each of them within 30 days of receiving a copy of the judgment. For survivors who do not have a bank account, the authority has been directed to open accounts and deposit compensation.

"Though the pain of the rape survivors will not end, some of their pain will subside," the judge said in his order. The order stated that the national legal aid authority has fixed compensation in crimes against minors from Rs 4 lakh to Rs 7 lakh. In this case, the crime against the accused has been proven in court and the rape survivors have faced severe physical and mental stress. Therefore, Rs 7 lakh compensation has been ordered.

The case, which had been on for 32 years, involved a total of 18 accused, with 12 of them being awarded life terms by the trial court in 1998. The Rajasthan high court later reduced their sentences to 12 years in jail and acquitted four of them in 2001, while the Supreme Court further reduced the sentence to 10 years. One of the accused committed suicide and one convict escaped while on parole and Interpol issued a red notice against him.

The six individuals sentenced on Tuesday were Nafees Chisty, Naseem Chisty, alias Tarzan, Iqbal Bhati, Saleem Gani Chisty, Sohail Gani Chisty and Sayeed Jameer Hussain. They had initially fled during trial and had been declared absconders. They eventually surrendered one by one, with Sohail Gani being the last to give himself up, after 29 years.

The prosecution team, led by additional director of prosecution Virendra Singh Rathore, worked tirelessly to bring the remaining accused to justice. "Our team worked day and night to get justice for the rape survivors in this heinous case; today we feel relieved," Rathore said, adding, "The accused tried to benefit from the long duration of the case but our team worked to put all the pieces of evidence together."

The case first came to light in May 1992 when a local newspaper reported the rapes and blackmailing of school and college girls in Ajmer. It was revealed that a student was initially drugged, raped and photographed at a farmhouse on the outskirts of the city.


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