Three decades on, rape survivor in UP gets justice due to son’s efforts

LUCKNOW A court in Shahjahanpur has sentenced two men to 10-year imprisonment for raping a 12-year-old girl in 1994, with the punishment coming three decades after the crime was committed in the Uttar Pradesh city primarily due to the efforts of the survivor’s son, police said on Wednesday.

In its order on Tuesday, the court also slapped a fine of ₹10,000 each on the convicts, both brothers and now aged 55 and 52, Shahjahanpur superintendent of police (SP) Ashok Kumar Meena said.

The incident occurred in Shahjahanpur in 1994, when the convicts, who were family acquaintances of the survivor, raped her multiple times and impregnated her at the age of 12. After childbirth, she had to give up her son for adoption. “Years later, he traced his mother and helped her file a complaint against the accused,” the SP said.

A case was registered at the Sadar police station in Shahjahanpur on March 5, 2021, on a local court’s intervention after the survivor’s son filed an application on her behalf.

“Her son sought a DNA test of the two accused to be matched with his. It matched with one of the accused after they were arrested and a charge sheet was filed in the case,” Meena said. “The court convicted the duo under IPC Section 376 for rape and sentenced them in the matter.”

Elaborating on the case details, Shahjahanpur ASP (rural) MK Awasthi said the two convicts — the aged 25 and 22 — sexually assaulted the then 12-year-old girl while she was living with her elder sister and brother-in-law.

“They raped the girl after finding her alone, but she did not inform her family. The matter was disclosed when her pregnancy was detected, after which her kin tried to terminate the pregnancy,” Awasthi said.

Doctors, however, advised against abortion citing risk to girl’s life, the ASP said.

She gave birth in 1995, after which her family members gave the child for adoption to a distant relative in Hardoi, where the now 29-year-old was raised, another police officer said, requesting anonymity. “Around five years ago, he came to know about the crime against his biological mother (now 42). Subsequently, he went to meet his mother in Shahjahanpur and started pursuing the fight for justice,” the officer said.

The ASP added that the survivor’s son pursued the case all through the court trial and came forward for the DNA sampling, which helped in getting the accused convicted.

Director of UP State Institute of Forensic Sciences (UPSIFS) GK Goswami described DNA sampling as a strong tool that could help in conviction of accused even in decades-old crime cases. “The conviction highlights the importance of DNA sampling in solving crime cases,” he added.