Principal District and Sessions Court of Bokaro district acquitted five accused of charge of creating violence after the Monika rape incident occurred in 1999. Judge Prakash Jha acquitted the five including then Shiv Sena leader Arun Tiger, Baldeo Das, Jagdish Sharma, Ashok Conductor and Bablu form the case on Saturday evening.
All of them were charged for creating violence and nuisance after a girl (Monika) was brutally raped by sixteen people, aged between 22 and 55 on 5 April 1999 at Bokaro, informed R Giri, advocate of district court Bokaro. In 2004, the Bokaro court convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment 21 accused in the case.
While in the year 2015 the Jharkhand High Court upheld the life sentence awarded to 12 convicts and acquitted eight others involved in the gruesome gang rape. The bench upheld the sentences of convicts Yunus Ansari, Talib Ansari, Sirajuddin Ansari, Habib Ansari, Anwar, Islam Ansari, Feroz Shah, Gaffar Ansari, Momin Akhtar, Saiyuum Ansari, Khadim Hussain, Pramod Pillai and Mani Swamy.
While acquitted Abbas Ansari, Noor Alam Ansari, Mansoor Ansari, Abdul Sattar, Quazi Rizwan, Muzib Ansari, Shabbir Shah and Eqbal Shah of all charges, sources informed.
Monika was a class 12 student of Bokaro St Xavier’s School, daughter of a senior Assistant General Manager of Bokaro Steel plant. On April 5, 1999 Monica was kidnapped by half a dozen youths and raped by 16 persons. They later dumped her believing to be dead.
Next morning, Monica admitted at Bokaro General Hospital and the police were informed about it. But then Bokaro DSP Md Nihal reported to the then Superintendent of Police VG Deshmukh that it was a fake case and the incident took an ugly turn. The incident rocked the mass and communal clashes erupted in the city where later curfew was imposed.
According to the sources, Monica was a Black Belt holder (karate) was kidnapped after she thrashed a police officer’s nephew, who tried to molest her. The incident caused fatal injuries to Monika who was unable to walk on her own. later she died in 2008 after nine years of prolonged treatment.
