Boinda: Adjudicating a case of gangrape, additional district and sessions judge (Athmallik) Sanjib Ranjan Samant convicted four persons and awarded them 20 years of imprisonment each. However, another accused was acquitted due to lack of evidence. Notably, a woman was gangraped at Kamarei under Handapa police limits in Angul district in 2018. The convicts were identified as Pilu Behera of Kamarei; Dibyaranjan Barik, Sujit Behera of Chhendipada and Nilam Sahu of Thakurgada.
The court also imposed a penalty of Rs 50,000 each. In default, the convicts would undergo an additional jail term of two years each. Another accused Pradip Pradhan of Katada was acquitted for want of evidence against him. According to the case diary, a couple from Sambalpur was going in a car to Cuttack May 3, 2018. At around 10 pm, as they were nearing Nakchi village in Angul district, the woman asked her husband to stop the car so that she could relieve herself on the roadside.
She returned to the car to collect water bottle in the back seat of the car. After taking the bottle she shut the door of the car. Thinking that his wife had returned to the car, the husband drove away. The accused found the woman, took her to a forest and gangraped her.
After driving for some 15 km, the husband realised that his wife was not there in the car following which he drove back to Nakchi but could not locate her. Later, he lodged a missing complaint at the Handapa police station. Police had rescued the woman from Paradip area.
