Cuttack: Nine years after the conviction in the sensational Kandhamal nun rape case, the survivor appeared before the district and sessions judge court here on Wednesday to give evidence against 18 other accused in the case. The nun's evidence could not, however, be recorded as the Odisha government has not yet appointed a lawyer for her.
Sources in the court said another date for recording her statements will be fixed soon after the appointment of her lawyer by the state government. The nun, who was 25 years old at the time of the crime, had alleged that she was gang-raped on August 25, 2008, after a mob ransacked and attacked the local pastoral center after the murder of religious leader Laxmanananda Saraswati in Kandhamal on August 23.
The state crime branch police had arrested and chargesheeted nine people in the gang rape of the nun on the basis of an FIR registered in the K Nuagaon police station of Kandhamal district. It had filed three chargesheets separately accusing total 30 people in the case. After a nearly six-year-long trial of the nine who were chargesheeted, the sessions court here convicted three of them, including the prime accused, Mitu Patnaik in March 2014. Six others were acquitted.
The nun's evidence on Wednesday was for the remaining accused in the case. The case is being heard in Cuttack after an appeal by the nun. While Patnaik alone was convicted for the rape and sentenced to 11 years rigorous imprisonment, two others - Gajendra Digal and Saroj Badhei were found guilty of outraging the victim's modesty, obscene act and criminal intimidation and were sentenced to two years rigorous imprisonment. (PTI)
