Baghpat (Uttar Pradesh), Mar 13 (IANS): A local court in Baghpat has pronounced a cleric, Mohd Zubair, guilty of raping a 49-year-old Uttar Pradesh Police head constable and blackmailing her into submission.

The court has awarded life sentence to the convict and also slapped a fine of Rs 50,000 on the convict.

The court observed that the "convict has knowingly, lured a hapless Dalit woman into his trap by promising removal of evil through 'tantra' and not only raped her repeatedly, but also fleeced her financially. This falls in the category of heinous crime and he is a threat to humanity."

According to reports, the woman's 17-year-old son had met with an accident in 2018 and his condition did not improve despite treatment.

Someone introduced her to the cleric, who claimed the boy was possessed and that he would 'exorcise the evil spirit'.

She believed in him, and during the process of 'treatment', Zubair raped the woman.

In October 2019, the woman filed an FIR against the cleric.

The woman is a widow and had lost her husband who was in Uttar Pradesh Police to illness in 2002. Four years later she got a constable's job under the 'dependent category'.