The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court upheld the life sentence of four men pronounced by a trial court, for raping a 23-year-old woman from Delhi in 2018.
A division bench of judges, G Jayachandran and KK Ramakrishnan passed the order on Saturday, 4 March, while hearing appeals filed by the five convicts. Amongst the five, four were sentenced to life imprisonment and one was sentenced to seven years imprisonment.
According to the prosecution, the woman, a senior associate of a bank, took her flight to Chennai from Delhi. After alighting from the flight at Chennai airport, the woman took a train and arrived at Kumbakonam at around 9.30 PM.
She hired an auto to get to her accommodation; however the auto driver Gurumurthy took took a detour through the Chettimandapam bypass. The woman made a phone call to her friend and stepped down from the auto midway.
The woman asked for a lift from a motorcyclist who was followed by his friend on another bike. They took the woman to a remote location on the bypass road near Nachiyar Koil, where they sexually assaulted her. Later they called over two more persons. The woman filed a police complaint and Special Forces arrested the four youth and the auto driver. The police submitted a 700-page charge sheet in the Thanjavur Mahila court. At the end of the trial, the court sentenced them to life imprisonment up to natural death and a fine of Rs 65,000 each, while the auto driver, Gurumurthy was sentenced to seven years imprisonment with a fine of Rs 10,000.
