By IANS,
Ahmedabad : Five people, including an industrialist’s son, were awarded life imprisonment Friday by an additional sessions judge for the gang-rape of Bijal Joshi, who later committed suicide, in a hotel here during a New Year eve party.
Additional Sessions judge Jyotsna Yagnik awarded life imprisonment to Sajal Jain, Sugam Jaiswal, Ashok Jaiswal alias Mandan, Chandan Jaiswal and Dharmendra Jain alias Karan while acquitting seven others for want of conclusive evidence.
Joshi, 24, committed suicide Jan 7, 2004 after she was gang-raped and tortured by her boyfriend Jain and four others in Room No. 106 of Hotel Ashok Palace in Osmanpura area here during a New Year eve party in 2003.
Jain, 32, a father of two, had befriended Joshi. He invited her to the hotel to celebrate the New Year and then raped her along with four of his friends Dec 31, 2003.
He is son of an industrialist and owner of Delhi’s Apollo Millennium Hospital.
He was arrested on charges of rape and abetting suicide after Joshi committed suicide. In in her suicide note, she named Jain and his four friends for raping and torturing her. Her body had borne several bite marks.
The Shahibaug police in March 2004 filed a 600-page charge sheet naming 12 people for her rape and suicide in the metropolitan court here.
The charge sheet named Jain, who is Delhi-based dealer of Mahek gutkha, Chandan Jaiswal and Ashok Jaiswal (sons of hotel owner Pannalal Jaiswal) and their friend Sugam Jaiswal.
Two other accused in the case – Karan and Manish, both from Rajasthan – are absconding.
Pannalal along with his son-in-law Anand Jaiswal had been accused of destruction of evidence along with Sugam’s father Harishankar Jaiswal, mother Seema and sister Shreya.
Ashok Patel, Anand-based dealer of Mahek gutkha, has been accused of sheltering Chandan and Mandan.
Six policemen, including an inspector of Shahibaug police station, were suspended for their laxity in the case in 2004.