LUCKNOW, India (Reuters) – A court in the Northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday found two Hindu men guilty of gang-raping a Muslim woman during communal riots in 2013 and sentenced them to 20 years in prison.
The woman alleged that three men who resided in her village had beaten her up and raped her while also holding her three-month-old son hostage.
“Three men were accused of the crime, but one died during trial. The others have been convicted,” a lawyer representing the victim said.
“The court has sentenced them to 20 years’ rigorous imprisonment and also imposed a fine of 10,000 rupees ($122.28) each,” the lawyer said.
Lawyers for the defendants, who pleaded not guilty, could not immediately be reached.
The 2013 Hindu-Muslim riots in the district of Muzaffarnagar, situated about 130 km (81 miles) northeast of India’s capital New Delhi, killed about 65 people and forced thousands to flee their homes.
The violence erupted after the murder of two Hindu men in late August in 2013. Seven Muslim men were sentenced to life in prison for the crime in 2019.
($1 = 81.7800 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Saurabh Sharma, writing by Sakshi Dayal; editing by Barbara Lewis)
