Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala High Court will on Friday pronounce its verdict on the Suryanelli gangrape case. The case dates back to 1996 when a 16-year-old girl was abducted and raped in Kerala's Idukki district.
According to the prosecution, the girl was raped about 68 times in a period of 40 days by 41 people. The case took a high profile turn when the girl alleged that one of her rapists was Rajya Sabha Deputy Speaker PJ Kurien. But the court refused to make Kurien an accused in the case thereby rejecting the survivor's plea.
In 2005, the Kerala High Court acquitted 35 people in the case - except for prime accused - Dharmarajan. A lawyer by profession, Dharmarajan was the only accused convicted by the Kerala High Court in 2005 while it cleared 34 others earlier held guilty by a special court that conducted trial in the case in the late 1990s.
After serving a brief jail term, Dharmarajan was freed on bail but never returned to prison and his whereabouts were unknown till he resurfaced in February, after the case took a new turn with the Supreme Court asking the Kerala High Court to conduct a re-trial.
The girl, hailing from Suryanelli in Idukki district of Kerala, was abducted in January 1996 and was transported to various places in the state and sexually exploited by different persons.
Comments
0 comment