BJP MLA Ramdular Gond of Uttar Pradesh is sentenced to 25 years in prison for raping a juvenile

BJP MLA Ramdular Gond was disqualified from the Uttar Pradesh Assembly on Friday after a court sentenced him to 25 years of hard jail for raping a girl nine years before.

A legislator serving a two-year or longer prison term is barred from office “from the date of such conviction” and is barred from office for an additional six years upon their release, according to the Representation of the People Act.

Gond was also fined Rs 10 lakh by Ahsan Ullah Khan, the additional district and session judge of the MP-MLA court in Sonbhadra. The money will go to the rehabilitation of the rape victim.

The woman who was raped is now married and has an eight-year-old daughter.

According to Special Public Prosecutor Satyaprakash Tripathi, the Duddhi assembly seat, which is reserved for Scheduled Tribes, was held by the MLA.

Following the brother of the rape victim’s complaint, a case was filed against Gond in 2014 under the provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, as well as under IPC sections 376 (rape) and 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation).

According to Tripathi, Gond was not an MLA at the time, and his wife was a gram pradhan. Following Gond’s election as a lawmaker, the case’s trial was moved from a POCSO court to an MP-MLA court.

Prior to the decision being announced on Friday, the attorney for the MLA asked the court to impose the least amount of punishment. Additionally, he gave the court his word that Gond would assume full responsibility for the rape survivor’s family.

After a protracted battle, the brother of the rape victim expressed happiness with the court’s decision and declared that she had finally received justice. After the judgment was announced, the MLA, who had been detained in the district jail, was brought before the court and then returned to the jail.

Gond might lose his Assembly membership, which would put him on the same humiliating list as other Uttar Pradesh politicians who have already experienced similar treatment.

Azam Khan, the leader of the Samajwadi Party and Assembly member for Rampur Sadar, as well as Vikram Singh Saini, an MLA for the BJP from Khatauli in Muzaffarnagar, were disqualified from the Uttar Pradesh Assembly in October 2022.

Saini was disqualified after his two-year prison sentence in a 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots case, whilst Khan was targeted after receiving a three-year jail sentence in a 2019 hate speech case.

Due to his conviction in a rape case, Unnao MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar was removed from the legislature in February 2020. The BJP has already expelled him.

Abdullah Azam Khan, the son of Azam Khan and an MLA for the Samajwadi Party, was sentenced to two years in prison for organizing a sit-in on a highway after the police stopped his cavalcade to conduct a check after an attack on a CRPF camp in Rampur on December 31, 2007. As a result, Abdullah Azam Khan lost his Assembly membership in February of this year.

Afzal Ansari, a BSP MP from Ghazipur, was banned from the Lok Sabha in May of this year after receiving a four-year jail term in an abduction and murder case.

An MP/MLA court condemned Ghazipur MP Afzal Ansari in relation to the 1997 abduction and murder of businessman Nand Kishore Rungta, headquartered in Varanasi, and the 2005 murder of Ghazipur BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai.