A court in Varanasi on Monday sentenced a 22-year-old woman's uncle to life imprisonment for repeatedly raping and impregnating her in 2012. The convict's nephew, a distant cousin of the survivor, was also handed a life term for aiding the uncle in setting the survivor's brother on fire in 2016.
District and Sessions Judge Kuldeep Singh imposed a fine of Rs 20,000 on each convict. The survivor gave birth to a daughter in 2013 as a result of the repeated assaults.
According to the prosecution, in 2012, the survivor's uncle, then aged 35, convinced his brother-in-law to let him take his daughter to Mumbai on the pretext of arranging a job for her. Instead, he took her to Mumbai and then Goa, where he confined and repeatedly raped her. Additional district government counsel Manoj Kumar Gupta said the uncle threatened to kill her and her family if she resisted the sexual assault.
The survivor managed to escape captivity and returned to her parental home in Varanasi on April 12, 2016. However, police said the uncle continued to threaten her and her family, warning of dire consequences if she refused to return to him.
On April 18, 2016, the uncle and his nephew entered the survivor's house in the Sarnath area through a rear entrance. When the survivor's 20-year-old brother stepped outside, the duo poured petrol on him and set him ablaze, causing critical burn injuries. He later succumbed to his injuries while undergoing treatment at a private hospital.
Before fleeing, the duo also threatened to burn the survivor alive. Both were arrested in 2016 and have remained in custody since then. Police filed a chargesheet in the same year.
