Madhya Pradesh: Life Term For Hostel Operator In Rape Of Deaf-Mute Girls In Bhopal

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): A district and session court in Bhopal has sentenced hostel operator Ashwini Kumar Sharma to life imprisonment for raping deaf and mute girls.

According to ADPO Manoj Tripathi, the victim is a hearing-impaired girl from a Scheduled Tribe. She passed her 11th-class examination in 2016 from UmaviPalanbasa Ujjain, a school for hearing impaired run by the Social Justice Department.

For further education, she was admitted to Government Gas Relief and Rehabilitation and Training Institute, Govindpura, Bhopal. The admission was facilitated by Superintendent Sandhya Sharma with help from local Social Justice Department officials. Following arrangements made by the ITI Institute and the Social Justice Department, she was placed in Kritarth Boys Hostel, which was run by the accused, Ashwini Kumar Sharma.

The accused, Ashwini Kumar Sharma, had a residence at house no. 172, Crystal Ideal City, Awadhpuri, Bhopal. He used victim U and three other girls for cooking and doing household work at this house, which he operated as an illegal residential hostel.

Sharma showed the girls obscene and provocative photographs separately on his mobile phone and used to touch the private parts of victim U and other hearing-impaired girls. In October 2017, he showed obscene photographs on his mobile to victim and threatened to kill her if she told anyone.

Acting as the girls' guardian, he got them admitted to a women's ITI institute for a 68-day sewing course. During this time, the accused kept them illegally in his residential hostel at house number 172, Crystal Ideal City, Awadhpuri, and forced them to clean and cook.