Chandigarh: A fast-track court here on Thursday sentenced two maternal uncles, guilty of raping a 10-year-old girl, to life imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 3.5 lakh on them. The uncles, brothers hailing from Nepal, were convicted on Tuesday for raping the minor victim. The victim gave birth to a baby girl in August after the Supreme Court turned down her plea for abortion as she was over 30-week pregnant. 

The police had initially arrested one uncle based on the victim’s statement. However, when the DNA of the newborn did not match with that uncle, the case took a curious turn. The Central Forensic Sciences Laboratory (CFSL) report, which was submitted before a trial court here in October, had pointed out that the DNA sample of the child and the alleged rapist (uncle), arrested earlier, did not match. 

The Chandigarh Police, which launched re-investigation into the matter, arrested the second uncle in October, nearly two months after the rape victim delivered the child. The DNA of the second uncle, who is the younger one of the two, matched with the newborn. The prosecution told the trial court that the younger uncle had first raped the girl in December last year. The older uncle raped her repeatedly from April to July this year. 

The girl had told her parents and police investigators earlier that her maternal uncle (cousin of her mother) had raped her. She had also identified the accused. The victim’s plight made national headlines after the Supreme Court on July 28 disallowed her advanced pregnancy to be terminated. The victim delivered a girl child in the Government Medical College and Hospital in Sector 32 here on August 17. 

The girl’s pregnancy was discovered in July after her parents took her to the hospital when she complained of stomach pain. They discovered that the child had been repeatedly raped. A medical board, set up by Chandigarh’s Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) on the court’s orders to examine the pregnant child, warned that an abortion would risk the girl’s life. 

The order came on a PIL by advocate Alok Srivastava, who moved the top court after a plea for the medical termination of pregnancy was refused by a district court in Chandigarh on July 18.