Srinagar: An Anantnag court in Jammu and Kashmir has come down hard on a man accused of raping a 70-year-old tourist from Maharashtra in a hotel room in Pahalgam on April 1 this year.
Turning down the bail plea of Zubair Ahmad, a resident of Ganeshbal, Pahalgam, the Principal Sessions Judge of Pahalgam Tahir Khurshid Raina said that the incident is a reflection of “depravity” and “sick mentality” within society, while highlighting the importance of preserving moral values in society.
“This is what she will carry from Pahalgam – where she had come to enjoy the beauty of Kashmir – for the rest of her life,” the Judge noted, while pointing out that the medical opinion, forensic reports and the victim’s statement prima facie support the allegations of rape.
“I do not find any of the grounds pleaded in the application and arguments advanced by the counsel for the accused to influence the judicial conscience of this court to describe the incarceration of the accused as legally unsustainable and unwarranted at this stage of the investigation, which is even yet to culminate into a charge sheet,” the court said.
“A revered guest, who was a senior lady and on her visit to this land of saints and seers, was treated so shabbily and shockingly that for all times to come, she will have remorse over the choice of place she made to spend a period of her old age days with her children,” the court further stated.
According to the police, Zubair barged into the rape survivor’s hotel room when she was alone, gagged her with a blanket and then raped her, before fleeing the scene through a window. The elderly woman was not able to move and remained in pain for several days after the assault.
Zubair, however, claimed that he was falsely implicated and alleged bias on the part of the police due to personal enmity. He further argued that no test identification parade had been conducted.
