A youth has been sent to seven years in jail for raping and threatening a woman, with a Delhi court terming it a “vile and reprehensible” act that brought the feeling of humiliation, disgust, trauma and lifelong scar to the victim.
Additional Sessions Judge Sanjiv Jain handed down the jail term to 22-year-old Haseeb, a UP native, for raping the woman, a domestic help in the house where he worked as a tailor, saying the convict has “committed the vile act of rape upon the prosecutrix ….
“(It) is universally considered to be among the most morally and physically, reprehensible crime in society and assault on the body, mind, privacy of the victim. Her dignity is shredded. The social stigma attached to this crime is such that many a times, a crime would go unreported by the victim.”
The court, which directed Delhi Legal Service Authority (South District) to decide the appropriate compensation to be awarded to the victim, also said, “courts must be responsive to the plight of victim of sexual assault. Society’s belief and value systems need to be kept uppermost in mind as rape is the worst form of woman’s oppression.”
“Forcible sexual assault brings in humiliation, feeling of disgust, tremendous, embarrassment, sense of shame, trauma and lifelong emotional scar to a victim,” it said.
According to the police on October 3, 2015 Haseeb raped the woman when she was alone in the house where she worked as a domestic help. He also wrongfully confined her and threatened to kill her if she disclosed the incident to anyone, it said. The woman informed her husband about the assault four days later after which the complaint was lodged.
“The courts are alive to the social realities of Indian society where women find it very difficult to come out of the closet and report such matters to police for fear of humiliation. If the delay is well explained, Court will accept the same and not attach any significance to the same.
“The prosecutrix is a married woman and mother of six children. When such a woman is raped, she will take more than usual time to come to terms with the mental and physical trauma before gathering courage to fight out from the accused,” the judge said.
“Poor economic condition is a great anathema and bane to the quest for justice in any system. Same holds true for the prosecutrix and her husband in the present case. It took her a couple of days to talk to her husband first and then two days more to report the matter to the police…
“It is also to be noted that in such incidents where social stigma is attached, the complainant thinks number of times before going to the police station to lodge the report.
She got terrified and scared. She could not muster courage to immediately report the incident to her husband. The delay in lodging the FIR is thus of no consequence,” he said.
( Source – PTI )
