A court here on Thursday sentenced to life imprisonment two Karate instructors from Guna in Madhya Pradesh for gang-raping a minor girl multiple times.
The Guna Cantonment police had registered a case of gang-rape against three men, and also booked them under sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. They were later arrested and sent to jail.
In the complaint, the minor had alleged that the two instructors raped her not only in Guna, but also in other parts of the country as well as abroad.
Special POCSO court judge, Sonali Sharma, sentenced the accused, Jagveer Jatav (40) and Sachin Bhatnagar (30), to life imprisonment and also imposed a fine of Rs 7,000 on each. The third accused was acquitted by the court.
In its verdict, the court stated that Sachin Bhatnagar and Jagveer Jatav, taking advantage of the minor's immature mentality, not only betrayed her personal trust but also violated social values by tarnishing the sacred relationship between a guru and a disciple.
The court said the minor in this case suffered mental trauma resulting from a serious sexual offence at a young age, which will impact her entire life.
The victim, a resident of a neighbouring district of Guna, stated in her complaint that in 2017, when she was 12 years of age, she attended the Guna MP Wado Kai Karate Association for karate training, where Jatav and Bhatnagar taught.
According to the allegations, the two men repeatedly physically abused her at various locations, including Mumbai and Malaysia.
The victim stated in her complaint that she was continuously physically abused until 2019, and this ceased only when the COVID-19 pandemic struck.
According to the complaint, when the accused contacted the victim again in 2021, she told her mother everything and then filed a police complaint.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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