A special CBI court on June 6 awarded 10 years jail sentence to five persons, including Mohd Ashrif Mir, a former DSP of J&K Police and an encounter specialist; KC Padhi, former DIG of BSF; Shabbir Ahmad Laway, Shabbir Ahmad Langoo and Masood Ahmad in 2006 Jammu & Kashmir sex scandal case.
All five accused were sentenced to imprisonment under Section 376 (rape) of the Ranbir Penal Code by Additional District and Sessions Judge Gagan Geet Kaur.
The Central Bureau of Investigation court in Chandigarh imposed fine of Rs 1 lakh each on Padhi and Mir and Laway, Langoo and Ahmad were fined Rs 50,000 each.
There were total nine accused in the case out of which two accused Anil Sethi, former Additional Advocate General of Jammu and Kashmir and businessman Mehruj-ud din Malik were acquitted due to benefit of doubt. The other two accused Sabeena and her husband Abdul Hamid Bullah died during the course of the trial.
The case was first registered on 14 March 2006, at the Shaheed Gunj police station in Srinagar, under Section 67 of the Information Technology Act, back after the J&K police discovered two pornographic videotapes showing Kashmiri minor girls being sexually exploited.
According to the charge sheet filed, the minor victims were blackmailed and forced into prostitution for Rs 250 to Rs 500.
Judgment reads
The fine amount be applied in the payment to the prosecutrix is as compensation for the loss of her reputation, dignity, mental harm and loss of opportunity of education.
The contention by convicts i.e. not having knowledge of the age of prosecutrix at the time of occurrence has no weight at all and rejected at the very outset.
The manner in which the convict Laway and Ahmad committed rape upon the minor prosecutrix on the same day at same place does not warrant any leniency.
The convict Langoo committed rape upon her twice even when she did not accept his proposal of marriage.
