A recent ruling by the Indore Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court reduced a rapist’s life sentence to 20 years.
New Delhi,UPDATED: Oct 25, 2022 6:50 PM IST
Fact Check: Rapist whose life sentence has been reduced by Madhya Pradesh High Court is not a Muslim man, he is Hindu.
By Dheeshma Puzhakkal:
A recent ruling by the Indore Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court reduced a rapist’s life sentence to 20 years. The bank reportedly noted that while the crime was horrific, the convict was “kind enough” to spare the life of the four-year-old survivor.
This move was criticized by many on social media, some of whom also claimed the convict was a Muslim man named Mohammad Firoz. Such a claim was made by Sudarshan News journalist Santosh Chauhan.
The same claim was also tweeted by Sudarshan News journalist Ashish Vyas and Panchjanya, a publication by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Panchjanya later deleted the tweet. The archived versions of these messages can be viewed here, here and here.
The AFWA investigation revealed that the convict is Ramsingh, a Hindu man, not Mohammad Firoz.
AFWA probe
According to reports published by media organizations including: The Indian Expressthe Hindu Timesand The Hindu, the convict’s name was Ramu alias Ramsingh. The Madhya Pradesh High Court’s Indore Bench has reduced his life sentence, which was awarded to him in 2009, to 20 years incarceration.
While the court of Judges Subodh Abhyankar and Satyendra Kumar Singh called the crime “a demonic act”, it reduced the life sentence stating that the convict was “kind enough” to spare the child’s life.
The court said: “In such circumstances, this Court finds no fault whatsoever in the court’s assessment of evidence and given the demonic act of the applicant who appears to have no respect for the dignity of a woman and tends to defraud even with a girl of four years a sexual offence, the court does not consider it an appropriate case in which the sentence can be reduced to the sentence he has already served, given that he was kind enough to leave the public prosecutor is alive, this court of judge that the life sentence can be reduced to 20 years incarceration.”
Ramsingh was arrested on charges of raping a four-year-old girl in Indore in 2007. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in April 2009 by an Extra Sessions Judge, Indore. In May 2009, he appealed the verdict in the Supreme Court of Madhya Pradesh,
The incident reportedly took place near ITI ground in Indore on May 31, 2007. Ram Singh, then 25, was living in a tent nearby. He called the underage girl into the tent on the pretext of giving her a rupee and raped her.
AFWA access to the judge copy of the case dated October 18, 2022, to confirm the name of the convict. According to the verdict, which is available on the website of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, the name of the convict is Ramu aka Ramsingh, the son of Kishansingh.
Ramsingh’s lawyer Sharmila Sharma also confirmed to AFWA that Ramsingh is Hindu. She also sent us a photo of his court surrender memo in which Ramsingh was identified as a “Marwari Rajput”.
So it is clear that the name of the convict whose life sentence was reduced by the Madhya Pradesh High Court is not Mohammad Firoz. Moreover, the convict is a Hindu.