Expelled BJP lawmaker Kuldeep Singh Sengar along with six others on Friday were sentenced to 10 years in jail in connection with the death of a rape victim's father, who had died in custody in 2018 after being brutally beaten up in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.
The former state lawmaker is already serving a life sentence for raping the daughter of the deceased in 2017 in the state's Unnao district.
Along with imprisonment, Sengar and his brother have been fined over $13,000 (about INR 1 million) each, which they will have to pay to the victim’s family.
While pronouncing the sentencing, Judge Dharmesh Sharma stated that “the rape victim lost her father. She can’t return home. There are four kids in the family including three girls who need to be taken care of as they have been uprooted from their house”.
Sharma also stated that “Sengar was a public figure and he had to maintain the rule of law which was broken”.
Referring to the conspiracy of framing the rape victim’s father, Sharma said that “the way the crime has been committed, it does not call for leniency".
On 4 June 2017, a 17-year-old girl was gang-raped in Uttar Pradesh's Unnao district . Two years later, the court convicted local politician Kuldeep Singh Sengar for her rape and sentenced him to life imprisonment. He was also later found guilty for the death of the rape survivor's father in judicial custody during a brutal attack. Following the attack on her father, the girl made a bid to immolate herself at State Chief Yogi Adityanath's residence on 8 April 2018, but survived.
The family members of the deceased had alleged that he was assaulted following a quarrel with some of the accused in the case. He was later taken to a police station and framed under charges of possessing an illegal firearm then sent to custodial remand, where he died.
Last August, the case was transferred from Uttar Pradesh to Delhi for trial. Both the death and illegal firearm cases were later dropped by the court.
