Beijing, Feb 1 (IANS) A man was sentenced to death for keeping two girls in a dungeon as sex slaves for one year and raping nine other women in China.
Zeng Qiangbao, a 40-year-old worker in a steel factory in Wuhan, was convicted of rape, illegally imprisoning, robbery and forcible seizure by a court in central China’s Hubei province.
The court heard that Zeng had caged two teenage girls in a dungeon for 590 days and 317 days as sex slaves until they were rescued by police May 14 last year, the China Daily reported Tuesday.
He also raped nine other women from July 2007 to May 2010, the prosecutor said.
According to the prosecutor, Zeng captured 16-year-old Hu Sep 16, 2008, and took her to a dungeon under his house and raped her.
On July 2, 2009, Zeng kidnapped a 19-year-old girl surnamed Zhou and sexually assaulted her. The girl was also kept in the dungeon. Both the girls were repeatedly beaten and raped by Zeng, the prosecutor said.
The two were rescued May 14, 2010, after a man surnamed Du visited his friend’s electronics repair shop and found a note in a partially dismantled television. It read: ‘Help. I’ve been held prisoner underground for more than a year.’
Along with the words was a hand-drawn map that showed where the girls were being kept, as well as the telephone number and address of Zhou’s family.
Du called the number and informed the father of one of the victims, who later called the police.
–Indo-Asian News service
hv/vt
