Mumbai, Mar 20 (TNN): Even as principal sessions judge Shalini Phansalkar Joshi convicted all the five accused in two separate gang rape cases that had occurred in quick succession last year at the defunct and then desolate Shakti Mills compound at Mahalakshmi in south Mumbai, two juveniles also accused in the crime, are yet to be tried.
The verdict given on Thursday, within seven months, is considered by lawyers as among the fastest in a gang-rape case in the city. The sessions court had convicted four accused each in the two cases tried simultaneously. Three accused were common to both the cases.
The convictions were in the case of a young photojournalist who had lodged an FIR last August after being assaulted and gang-raped while on a photo-shoot assignment at the mill and in the case of a 19-year-old telephone operator, gang-raped three weeks earlier at the same mill compound while walking through the mill as a 'short cut' to the railway station with her then boyfriend.
The court convicted in all five accused in both gang-rape cases at Shakti Mill Compound including three who were common to both — Vijay Jadhav, Salim Ansari and Kasim Shaikh. The other two convicted are Ashfaq Shaikh and Siraj Khan. In the telephone operator case, it was Ashfaq along with three common and in the photojournalist case, it was Siraj Khan along with the common three accused.
There is a juvenile accused too in both the cases. The trial of the two juveniles, one each in the two separate gang-rape cases, has yet to begin before the juvenile justice board. Juveniles — minors in conflict with law — who are less than 18 years old cannot be tried along with adults before a regular trial court in India. They are tried by a magistrate assigned as an officer at the juvenile justice board.
Such trials are less stringent and set in an atmosphere which is meant to be child friendly. The maximum punishment a juvenile offender attracts even for a heinous crime such as a gang rape is three years under the law. The law that governs such juveniles is the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act.
The two juvenile were caught by the police soon after the first FIR was lodged by the photojournalist followed by the FIR by the telephone operator. Their trial did not start since the 'muddemal' the articles associated with the crime and used as evidence during trial were lying at the sessions court premises for the ongoing trial of the adult accused.
Now that the verdict is out at the sessions court, the trial of the juveniles is expected to start soon.
The quantum of punishment, likely the maximum possible, will be sought by special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam on Friday and the defence lawyer Prakash Salsingekar will seek leniency for all the five convicts.
The maximum punishment for gang rape under the amended law is life imprisonment which means imprisonment till the "remaining part of a person's natural life" the law says. The minimum punishment for gang rape is 20 years' rigorous imprisonment.