New Delhi, Aug 17 (IANS) A city court Monday convicted four members of the President’s Bodyguard in the 2003 Buddha Jayanti Park gang rape case.
Harpreet Singh and Satender Singh were found guilty of raping a 17-year-old student of a Delhi University college while Kuldeep Singh and Manish Kumar were convicted for helping them in commission of the offence.

Additional Sessions Judge S.K. Sarvaria announced the date of hearing on the quantum of sentence against the accused for Aug 22.

The four have been found guilty under sections 394 (robbery), 366 (kidnapping) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code.

However, Harpreet and Satender have also been convicted for gang rape under Section 376(2)(g) of the IPC.

The victim who had gone with her friend Ashish to the park near Rashtrapati Bhavan on Oct 6, 2003, was raped by Harpreet and Satender while the other two accused Kuldeep and Manish kept a watch.

The prosecution, which examined 25 witnesses to establish the rape charge, said that the accused had raped the victim when she had gone there with her friend for sight-seeing.

The four first roughed up the girl’s friend and then took her to a secluded place inside the park where they raped her, the prosecution alleged.

Then president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam had lost his cool when he get to know about the rape case.

“Kalam, normally so composed, was more angry that I had ever seen him,” writes P.M. Nair, his then secretary, in his book “The Kalam Effect”.

Ranbir Sharma, counsel for Harpreet expressed displeasure to the court’s findings and said: “The evidences were planted and all the recovery of the articles such as the girl’s handkerchief and a doll, that was recovered two days after the incident were never admitted by the victim.”

Maninder Singh, advocate appearing for Manish said: “He was not at all involved in the case directly and the case was based on the test identification parade (TIP) where the victim failed to identify my client and this is why he was not convicted under rape charges.”