Ludhiana gangrape: Court grants ‘imprisonment till death’ to two main accused

The verdict is significant due to the fact that the verdict was announced in less than one month of the chargesheet submission in the court by the police.

Considering the gangrape incident as one of the most ‘heinous’ crimes that shook Ludhiana, the additional session judge Priya Sood held the hearings in the case on daily basis or within a gap of every 2-3 days and the final verdict was announced on Friday.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Ravinder Abrol, public prosecutor in the case said, “The judge treated the case as a rare one and hearings were held almost daily or in a gap of every 2-3 days. It was not in fast track court and still the decision has come within three months of the incident. In fact, the charge sheet was submitted by police less than a month back, around 28 days ago and verdict has been announced in less than a month of trial after submitting chargesheet and framing charges. The arguments were completed on June 8 and accused were found guilty on June 11 and verdict was reserved. Today the judge announced it.”

The victim was present in the court when the verdict was announced. Amid heavy police security, the three accused were also present in the court.

Accused were arrested in less than 80 hours

It is to be noted that Ludhiana police caught all three accused within three days of incident and on March 11, they were behind the bars.

All they had for evidence was a white Maruti car which did not belong to Ludhiana and the victim was not even able to recognize the areas in Rajguru Nagar where she was raped.

More than 2,000 cops of Ludhiana police were divided into 250 teams and city was divided into 300 small sectors with responsibility to inspect each and every old model White Maruti in their area. Additional 50 parties were deployed in civil clothes to look for white Maruti cars.

Speaking to Indian Express, police commissioner Pramod Ban said that ‘police department was personally angered and shaken over what happened in city.’

“From a constable to the top, we deployed 2,000 cops on task for this case. Ludhiana was divided into 300 sectors and 50 other police teams were deployed in civil clothes to check white Maruti cars. Basically, we started from zero as girl was not able to recall anything. “We divided the cops into various WhatsApp groups. Each officer had a WhatsApp group having cops coming under him and the information including photos of white Maruti cars were circulated. Each cop was asked to revert immediately on seeing any white Maruti. The target was not the high income groups as they will not own an 80’s model Maruti,” said Ban.