By IANS,
Udaipur : A fast track court here Wednesday awarded life imprisonment to a guest house owner for raping a British freelance journalist last December.
“Additional district judge fast track court B.K. Jain, while finding guest house owner Parvat Singh guilty of rape, awarded life imprisonment and also imposed a fine of Rs. 25,000 on the accused,” public prosecutor B.S. Rao told IANS.
He said the court also convicted Singh under section 450 of the IPC and awarded seven years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 10,000. Section 450 relates to house-trespass in order to commit an offence punishable with imprisonment for life.
The Udaipur police arrested Singh, 32, Jan 9 shortly after the 40-year-old British journalist sent an email urging the British High Commission to immediately intervene in the matter.
Singh is owner of Pardesi Guest House in Ambamata area of Udaipur.
The incident took place on the night of Dec 23 last year, when the British journalist asked for an extra blanket from the guest house staff.
However, Singh personally brought it for her and raped her thereafter. She had sent an e-mail to the British High Commission, which got in touch with the Udaipur police to investigate the matter.
In the last two years, the desert state of Rajasthan, a favourite tourist destination for both domestic as well as foreign tourists, has been rocked by incidence of rape and molestation of foreign tourists.
In 2005, a 47-year-old German tourist was raped by an auto-rickshaw driver and his accomplice in Jodhpur.
The two were sentenced to life imprisonment by a fast-track court within a month.
In March 2006, a 26-year-old German student was raped in Alwar by the son of a senior police officer of Orissa cadre. The accused, B.H. Mohanty was found guilty and sentenced to seven years imprisonment by a fast-track court.
However, he jumped parole in December 2006 and is absconding since then. In April 2006, a Japanese woman was raped and robbed of Rs. 54,000 by the son of a hotel manager, along with three other men, in the holy city of Pushkar in Rajasthan.
A fast track court sentenced Babloo, the main accused in the rape of the Japanese tourist, to seven years’ rigorous imprisonment.
In January, an American tourist complained of being molested in Pushkar.