A special court in Ajmer sentenced six remaining defendants in the infamous 1992 ‘Blackmail and Rape Case’ to life imprisonment on Tuesday. Each convict was also fined five lakh rupees. In this high-profile case, over 100 girls from Ajmer city were victims of the accused. The prosecution lawyer, Veerendra Singh, noted that the case was being heard in a POCSO court.
Judge Ranjan Singh found the six defendants guilty of involvement in the crime and delivered the verdict. The accused—Nafees Chishti, Naseem alias Tarzan, Saleem Chishti, Iqbal Bhati, Sohail Ghani, and Syed Jameer Hussain—were each fined five lakh rupees. Notably, one accused, Iqbal Bhati, was transported to Ajmer from Delhi in an ambulance to attend court. The 1992 case involved blackmailing girls by taking obscene photos and threatening to make them public.
According to the police, the girls were sexually exploited after being threatened with the release of these photos. The victims, aged between 11 and 20, were lured to a farmhouse by the accused, where they were raped. Veerendra Singh mentioned that in 1998, eight convicts were sentenced to life imprisonment, one in 2007, and six more on Tuesday. One of the accused committed suicide in 1994, and one is still at large. The case involved a total of 18 defendants. Singh explained that the first charge sheet was filed against 12 defendants, including Naseem alias Tarzan, who went missing in 1994. Zahoor Chishti was found guilty under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (unnatural sexual offenses) and his case was transferred to another court. Farooq Chishti’s case was handled separately due to his diagnosis of schizophrenia, and one accused had committed suicide.
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