Accused in both cases of gang rape at Shakti Mills convicted

Mumbai: The Session court on Thursday held five men guilty for the gangrape of two women in the abandoned Shakti Mills compound last year. The court will pronounce the quantum of punishment tomorrow. A total of seven persons, including two minors, were arrested in both the cases in which three of them are accused in both cases. [caption id=“attachment_1064845” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File Photo of Shakti Mills. Sachin Gokhale/Firstpost[/caption] The principal sessions court judge Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi convicted Vijay Jadhav, 19, Mohammad Qasim Shaikh, 21 and Mohammad Ansari, 28, in both the gangrape cases. In addition to the trio, the court found Siraj Khan guilty in the photojournalist gangrape case on 22 August, and Mohammad Ashfaque Shaikh, 26, guilty in the telephone operator gangrape case at the same compound on 31 July, last year. Two minors, one in each case, are being tried by the Juvenile Justice Board separately. The court convicted the five men for gangrape, conspiracy, common intention, unnatural sex and offences under the Information Technology Act. Welcoming the verdict, Maharashtra Home Minister RR Patil, who was present in the court, said, “The cases were tried in fastest possible time and victims have got justice….hope this verdict will act as a deterrent”. The first case pertains to the gangrape of a 22-year-old magazine photojournalist who had gone to the deserted Shakti Mills compound in Central Mumbai with a male colleague on an assignment on 22 August, 2013. Five men, (including a juvenile, whose case was separated), were charged with raping her there after assaulting her colleague. They are Vijay Jadhav, Kasim Bengali, Salim Ansari, Siraj Rehman and a minor. The other case is of an 18-year-old telephone operator who was gangraped by five persons (including three of the accused in the first case) at the same premises on 31 July, last year. The accused in this case are Mohammed Ashfaq Sheikh, Mohamed Kasim Hafiz Sheikh alias Kasim Bengali, Salim Ansari, and Vijay Jadhav. The prosecution examined 44 witnesses in the photojournalist’s case and 31 in the other case. The defence examined three witnesses in the photojournalist’s case and only one witness in the other case. PTI