New Delhi: “The convicts abruptly finished her career as a national level shooter,” said a special CBI court in Ranchi, as it awarded life imprisonment to Ranjit Singh Kohli — alias Raquibul Hassan — convicted of raping his sports star ‘wife’, and of criminal conspiracy and wounding her religious sentiments, among others.
Special CBI judge Prabhat Kumar Sharma noted that the convict was being “held guilty of playing fraud, causing atrocities, and rape with a young girl by hatching conspiracy, who was shining at that time as a national level shooter”.
The court added: “She was an impressive example of an empowered woman who was also a national asset. The acts of the convicts abruptly finished her career as a player and eventually a possibility of glory for this great nation on many international platforms.”
It also convicted Kohli’s mother, Kaushal Rani, and Mushtaque Ahmad, who was then the registrar (vigilance) of the Jharkhand High Court, but was dismissed owing to grave charges concerning this case, according to the judgment.
All three have been convicted under Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), read with sections 376(2)(n) (repeated rape on a woman), 496 (marriage ceremony fraudulently gone through without lawful marriage), 298 (uttering words etc with deliberate intent to wound religious feelings), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 506 (criminal intimidation), of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
While Rani was awarded a 10-year jail term, Ahmad was given 15 years of rigorous imprisonment. Kohli, or Hassan, received life imprisonment as mentioned above.
The court also convicted the trio under Section 298 of the IPC, asserting that “creating pressure and force upon a lady for Nikah and to utter words Kabool hai-Kabool hai which are not according to her faith or religious affiliation is tantamount to wound her religious feelings”.
While nikah is marriage according to Muslim custom, “kabool hai [I accept]” is uttered by the bride and groom in a nikah to indicate their consent to the marriage.
The FIR in the case was filed in August 2014, on the basis of information filed by the complainant, under Sections 498A (husband or relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty) and 34 (common intention) of the IPC, against Kohli and Rani. Ahmad’s name was included later in the probe.
According to the judgment, the victim alleged that she married Kohli on 7 July, 2014, under Hindu rites, and started living with him and his mother. However, she alleged that the day after, a kaazi was called to solemnize her nikah according to the Islamic customs. The complainant has alleged that this was “on the direction of her husband that if she would not solemnize Nikah, he will not be her husband and in due course she was being subjected to torture on different ways and she was not being allowed to make phone calls to any one,” says the judgment.
The prosecution alleged that Kohli is a Muslim and concealed the truth from the victim. The judgment also details allegations of several instances of physical abuse of the victim. She alleged that in August 2014, Kohli “slapped [her] on her left ear as a result [of which] she sustained injury and swelling”, and “brutally assaulted the informant [the complainant] by kohni (elbow) upon her body, causing injury”. She was also threatened of dire consequences, if she disclosed the assault to her family members. She further claimed that Kohli “used to frighten her with his pet dog”, “smoked on her face”, and “raped her on gunpoint (sic)”.
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‘Web of conspiracy’
The first chargesheet in the case was filed in October 2014, under Sections 498A and 34 of the IPC. A supplementary chargesheet was filed against both the accused in January 2015, under Sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence) and 295A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) of the Indian Penal Code.
However, the Jharkhand high court transferred the investigation in the case to the CBI in May 2015, on a petition filed by an NGO called “Akhand Bharat” through its district president in Ranchi.
The CBI filed a chargesheet in May 2017, under Sections 120B, 496, 376, 323, 298, 354A, 506 and 498A of the Indian Penal Code. The prosecution had alleged that Kohli and Ahmad had “started to knit the web of conspiracy when they met with the victim in a Rifle Shooting Camp at Khel Gaon, Ranchi”.
According to the judgment, Ahmad used to visit the camp with his rifle for practice, and had introduced himself as registrar (vigilance) of the high court. The victim submitted that the duo approached her with the proposal for her marriage with Kohli, and all the three accused then persuaded her for the marriage. The judgment, however, does not mention any reason behind the convicts’ actions.
While Kohli and the complainant were married according to Hindu customs, says the judgment, the complainant alleged that Kohli refused to allow a tika to be applied to him, claiming that he had an allergy, and also did not perform saptpadi (the seven rounds around a fire taken by a couple in a Hindu marriage), claiming that there was no custom of performing saptpadi for Sikhs. Before the court too, he claimed to belong to the “Punjabi Sikh Khatri” community.
The judgment mentions the prosecution as alleging that a day after the Hindu marriage, Kohli called a kaazi to perform a nikah, and told the complainant that he would not be her husband till a nikah was performed. She alleged that it was only during the nikah that she came to know about Kohli’s name actually being Raquibul Hassan. According to her testimony, mentioned in the judgment, the kaazi was told that her name was actually Sara Parween, but she told the kaazi her real name, a Hindu name, after which he did not issue a nikah certificate in the absence of a conversion certificate.
The judgment mentions the defence as claiming that allegations of nikah and attempts at forceful conversion were “baseless and vague”.
On 13 August, the victim claimed that she managed to slide her brother’s number to Poonam Devi, a member of the housekeeping staff at Kohli’s house, and asked her to tell her brother about the treatment being meted out to her. She was then finally “rescued” from the house on 19 August, 2014, by the local police, who reached Kohli’s house with the complainant’s family. An FIR was registered against Kohli and his mother the same day.
‘Kohli was a Muslim before marriage’
The court began its examination by deciding the “core issue of the dispute” — whether Kohli was following Hinduism/Sikhism or Islam before he married the complainant. The prosecution had claimed that Kohli used to be known by another name, Raquibul Hassan/ Rakibul Khan Saheb and used to follow the practice of Islam.
The court looked at evidence, which included submissions by former minister of the Jharkhand government Haji Hussain Ansari, who told the court that Kohli introduced himself as Raquibul Hassan, alias Ranjeet Singh Kohli.
On the other hand, Kohli had referred to his Aadhar Card and PAN card, which showed his name to be Ranjeet Singh Kohli, to claim that he belonged to the Hindu or Sikh faith.
However, the court refused to accept this submission, observing, “In my considered opinion, these documents can’t prove the religious identity of any person; as I have already discussed above, religion or belief is a matter of an individual’s conscience, and his name can’t determine the same. Moreover, there is no mention of the religious identity of the accused on these exhibited documents.”
The court then concluded that “Ranjeet Singh Kohli, was professing Islam before the date of marriage with the prosecutrix i.e. 07.07.2014, as he was practicing Islamic rituals/practices and was also known as a person of that religion or belief by the persons around him.”
On the basis of this finding, the court also called that the Hindu marriage between Kohli and the complainant “fraudulent”, observing, “The evidence show that at the time of performing the marriage as per the Hindu rites and rituals the accused [now convict] was knowing that the marriage performed according to Hindu ritual was not the actual and valid marriage, hence he told the victim to perform Nikah as per his wish, as after performing Nikah by calling Kabool hai, Kabool hai, three times the victim shall be his legally wedded wife.”
‘Wounded her religious feelings’
In her testimony before the court, the complainant claimed that Ahmad assured her about Kohli being a good man from a respectable family. According to the judgment, she told the court that “she and her family believed Md. Mustaque Ahmad as he was posted at a respectable post and, on his assurance, agreed to an important decision for her life, which was turned into a blunder of her life”.
The complainant had also alleged that Kohli used to establish physical relations with her forcefully and that he had raped her at gunpoint.
Examining the rape allegations, the court noted that since their marriage was found to be fraudulent, Kohli is not her husband and so can’t be exempted under the marital rape exemption. The rape law in IPC exempts married men from being charged with rape of their spouses.
The court also noted that under Section 90 0f the IPC, consent given under fear of injury or misconception is not consent in the eyes of law.
Further, the court opined that the three convicts had also committed an offence under Section 298 of IPC, after noting, “all three accused facing trial had forced her to perform Nikah with A-1 [accused one] by pronouncing Kabool hai-Kabool hai. It is a known fact to all that Nikah by saying Kabool hai three times is a ritual of Muslim religion. The victim has deposed that she is a follower of Hindu faith and she was not ready to do as the accused persons were compelling her.”
This, it opined, amounted to “wounding the religious feelings” of the woman.
‘Lured her with buttery words’
After the conviction, the public prosecutor had demanded severe punishment for the accused, asserting that they placed in jeopardy “the future of a young and bright national player of rifle shooting”. Owing to their acts, the prosecutor said, “our nation has been deprived of her talent, because this incident shocked her physically and psychologically and she never back in the shooting range with her natural zeal”.
Their offence, therefore, not only affected her, but also the nation, the judgment quoted the prosecutor as saying.
On the other hand, the convicts demanded leniency in punishment, pointing out that it had been a long trial, and that this was the first offence that they have been convicted of. They also submitted that Rani is old and sick, and Ahmad is also in his sixties.
However, the court noted that the convicts “lured/ approached her [the complainant] with their buttery words, she was in a gloomy phase due to the sudden departure of her beloved mother to the heavenly abode”.
It asserted that they “used the moment to make her emotional and persuaded her to replace the mother’s love”, to then commit the crime.
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
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