MUSHTAQ AHMAD Vs. STATE OF H.P.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) APPELLANT has challenged, in this appeal, judgment dated 29.3.2008 of learned Sessions Judge, whereby he has been convicted of offences, under Sections 363, 366, 376 and 120 -B IPC and sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for seven years and to pay a fine Rs. 10,000/ - for offence, under Section 376 IPC and to undergo rigorous imprisonment for three years and to pay a fine of Rs. 5000/ - for each of the other two offences, under Sections 363 and 366 IPC, but no separate sentence for offence, under Section 120 -B IPC has been imposed.

(2.) ALLEGATIONS , which led to the charging, trial, conviction and sentence of the appellant for the aforesaid offences may be summed up thus. Prosecutrix, aged about 14 years, was a student of 8th standard in a Government School, falling within the jurisdiction of Police Station, Nalagarh, in February, 2007. On 12.2.2007, she left her village for the school in village Rajpura. She did not return home in the evening. On inquiry, her parents came to know from the classmates to the prosecutrix that she had not attended the school that day. Report was lodged with the police about the prosecutrix having gone missing by the mother of the prosecutrix, namely PW -1 Bimla Devi. Copy of the report is Ext. PW1/A. This report was lodged on the very day of the prosecutrix having gone missing. Case was, however, registered on 22.2.2007, vide FIR Ext. PW1/B, when one Mohi Ram a Rehriwala, told the parents of the prosecutrix that he had seen the prosecutrix boarding a bus for Ropar alongwith Manjoor Ahmad, a tenant in the house of one Asha Devi, a neighbour of the parents of the prosecutrix. Present appellant also used to live in the house of said Asha Devi, as a tenant. He was known to the prosecutrix family as he had become god brother of an elder sister of the prosecutrix.

(3.) DURING the course of investigation, prosecutrix told that she had been taken to Ropar by Manjoor Ahmad, a Proclaimed Offender in this case, and from there he took her to Amritsar and kept her there for a week and raped her. She further stated that from Amritsar she was taken to Jammu, where the present appellant joined Manjoor Ahmad and from Jammu she was taken to Kupwara by the appellant and Majnoor Ahmad and where Proclaimed Offender Manjoor Ahmad handed her over to the appellant and disappeared. She told that she had been kept at the house of one Gulam Navi, where appellant Mustaq had raped her.