BJP MLA Ramdular Gond convicted: 25 years of rigorous imprisonment in 2014 rape case

VARANASI: The court of the additional district judge (first), MP/MLA, awarded a punishment of 25-year rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 10 lakh to BJP MLA Ramdular Gond from the Duddhi constituency in Sonbhadra district on Friday.

On December 12, the court convicted Gond, finding him guilty of raping a 15-year-old girl in 2014. After being found guilty under sections 376 and 506 of IPC and the POCSO Act, the MLA was immediately taken into custody and sent to jail.

Additional district judge (first), MP/MLA Court, Ehsan Ullah Khan, found the MLA guilty in the 2014 rape case, as confirmed by special public prosecutor (Pocso) Satyaprakash Tripathi.

Rape survivor’s advocate Vikas Shakya stated that Gond would lose his assembly membership, as per the Supreme Court's 2013 ruling. According to this ruling, any MP or MLA convicted of a crime and given a minimum of two years’ imprisonment loses membership of the House with immediate effect.

Shakya added that the MLA was found guilty under Indian Penal Code’s sections 376 (rape) and 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation), and under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. He mentioned that eight prosecution and three defense witnesses were examined by the court.

Expressing satisfaction over the MLA’s conviction, the rape survivor’s brother said that Gond had harassed the family after becoming the MLA and pressured them to withdraw the case.

At the time of the incident, Gond’s wife was the village pradhan. According to a senior officer in prosecution, Gond had allegedly caught the girl and tried to sexually assault her when she had gone to a nearby field to attend nature’s call in the evening of November 4, 2014.

Somehow the survivor managed to return home and narrated her ordeal to her elder brother, who was a farmer. The survivor also told her brother that Gond had raped her several times in the past one year by threatening her. Myorpur police had registered a case against the MLA on the complaint of the girl’s brother.

Gond had defeated his closest rival, Vijay Singh of the Samajwadi Party, by 6,723 votes in the 2022 assembly elections.