However, the Court convicted main accused Pulsar Suni and five others in the matter for offences of gang rape, outraging modesty of woman, criminal conspiracy and kidnapping.
The persons convicted are Sunil NS aka Pulsar Suni, Martin Antony, Manikandan B, Vijeesh VP, Salim H aka Vadival Salim and Pradeep.
They were found guilty of offences under 120B (criminal conspiracy), 342 (wrongful confinement), 354 (use of force to outrage modesty of woman), 366 (kidnapping), 354B (use of force to disrobe woman), 357 (use of criminal force to wrongfully confine a person) and 376D (gang rape) of Indian Penal Code.
All six were found guilty of conspiring to commit the offences under Section 66E (capturing, publishing or transmitting the image of a private area of any person without his or her consent) and 67A (publishing or transmitting of material containing sexually explicit act in electronic form) of the Information Technology Act for video recording the sexual assault. However, only Suni was found guilty directly under these two provisions.
Martin Antony was additionally found guilty under Section 201 of the IPC which penalises causing the disappearance of evidence or giving false information to screen an offender.
“The acts of the Accused numbers 1 to 6 amounts to offence punishable under sections 120B read with 342, 354, 354B, 357 and 376D of IPC and Sections 66E and 67A of the Information Technology Act, 2001. Accused 1 to 6 are found guilty for the offences punishable under section 120B read with 342, 354, 354B, 357 and 376D of IPC and Sections 66e and 67a of the information technology act, 2001, they are convicted thereof,” the Court’s order stated,
The Court will pronounce their sentence on December 12.
Besides Dileep, Charlie Thomas, Sanilkumar aka Mesthiri Sanil and Sarath G Nair were also acquitted.
Ernakulam Principal District and Sessions Court judge Honey M Varghese delivered the much awaited judgment.
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