JAIPUR: The District and Sessions Court in Karauli has denied bail to the accused in the case of alleged mass rape of a "Sahayogini" working with the Rajasthan Women and Child Welfare Department.

Rejecting the bail petitions of Daya and Lokesh Sharma, presently in judicial custody for rape and plotting rape, Judge Padam Kumar Jain said in such issues the courts should always give credence to the victim's version.

Citing rulings of the Supreme Court in similar cases, Dr. Jain said the courts needed to be extra sensitive in such serious issues. He accepted the contention of Ajay Kumar Jain, counsel of women's organizations— Rajasthan University Women's Association, All India Democratic Women's Association, National Federation of Indian Women and others— fighting the case that the state of shock the victim was presently in could be due to the trauma of mass rape.

Counsel for the accused had argued that a subordinate in the Women and Child Development Department was implicating his clients, her superiors, falsely in the rape case. The first information report also was registered 19 days after the alleged rape and that too by the husband of the victim, he argued.

The area had witnessed tension in the past fortnight as the accused had mobilised the support of their caste groups to browbeat the official and judicial process. The women's groups took over the issue after the local police refused to register a complaint from the husband of the victim. The police and the hospital administration in the district had termed the victim a "mental case" after the doctors who initially treated her put her on heavy dose of sedatives.

Counsel for the victim told the court that the doctors in the State capital had expressed surprise over the way the victim was "drugged" by doctors in Karauli who did not have any qualification to treat those under shock and trauma.

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