Shakti Mills rape: HC to hear petition

Mumbai: The Bombay high court Wednesday fixed January 14 for a detailed hearing on the petitions filed by three persons awarded death sentence for raping a photojournalist at Shakti Mills compound in 2013.

A division bench of Justice B.P. Dharmadhikari and Justice Sarang Kotwal was hearing three of the five accused convicted by the city sessions court in 2014 i.e. Vijay Jadhav, Kasim Bengali and Salim Ansari. They had moved the high court after being sentenced to death for being repeat (rape) offenders. The court had also found them guilty of raping another woman in the Shakti Mills’ premises. The fourth accused, Siraj Khan, was sentenced to life imprisonment and the fifth, a minor, was sent to a correctional facility.

Jadhav, Bengali and Ansari had challenged the Constitutional validity of section 376 (E) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) during the trial. The prosecution had invoked section 376 (E) after finding that four of the accused had raped an 18-year-old telephone operator at the same place a few months before targeting the photojournalist.