Activist, another man sentenced to life imprisonment in rape case

A local court on Tuesday awarded life imprisonment in a gang rape case to two men, including an activist who had accused Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath of hate speech over a decade back.

A local court on Tuesday awarded life imprisonment in a gang rape case to two men, including an activist who had accused Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath of hate speech over a decade back. District and Sessions Court judge Govind Ballabh Sharma also imposed a fine of Rs 25,000 each on the convicts, Pervez Pravaz and Mahmood aka Jumman Baba, an occultist.

The judge said the amount will be used for the rehabilitation of the rape survivor. A case was registered against the two men on June 4, 2018, at the Rajghat police station after the woman alleged that both of them raped her on the pretext of treatment. Pervez and Jumman were jailed in September that year.

In 2007, Pervez had filed a petition against Adityanath, who was then a Gorakhpur MP, alleging that he gave hate speech on January 27 at Maharana Pratap chauraha near the Gorakhpur railway station after a clash between two communities during a moharram procession. The co-petitioner in the alleged hate speech case, Asad Hyat, in a Facebook post on Tuesday claimed that the rape charges against Pervez were false. He said an appeal will be made at the high court against the Gorakhpur session court decision.

The sessions court judge who pronounced the order in the rape case is to retire on July 31.