On Monday, a district court jury in Sydney, Australia, found Balesh Dhankhar, a man of Indian descent, guilty of drugging and raping five Korean women he had lured to his flat using phoney work ads. The verdict was announced in New Delhi.
According to reports, he is “one of the worst rapists” the city has seen in recent years.
Expert with data, Dhankhar, was on trial for 39 offences between January and October of 2018, 13 of which involved rape.
When police raided his flat in Sydney, Australia, in October 2018, the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) reported that they uncovered dozens of tapes showing him sexually assaulting the ladies. The movies were organised in folders with the names of individual Korean women. Later, “a string of bookmarks was discovered in Dhankhar’s browser,” SMH reported.
According to the SMH, it all started in 2017 with a bogus ad seeking Korean translators. Before forcing the victims to eat supper with him and drink soju and wine, Dhankhar interrogated them in the Hilton hotel cafe.
Dhankhar would then feign an emergency to sneak off to his loft at World Square Tower. The Opera House or his car keys were among the things he’d promise them.
Dhankhar allegedly drugged the wine and ice cream he served to the women, with remnants of the drugs being discovered in the bodies of two of the victims. Apparently, “his wife and family did not live in Australia at the time,” as SMH stated.
According to the Daily Mail, he was finally caught on October 21 after his fifth victim woke up as he was raping her and texted messages to a friend from the bathroom.
The defendant had a hard time providing an explanation for a call list he had compiled from responses to his web ad. “The spreadsheet includes his victims, whether he thought they were attractive, whether they had sex, and how they reacted to being drugged and abused,” the SMH said.
Dhankhar used a camera placed in his alarm clock and his phone to record his exploits. Dhankhar liquidated the family business to pay for his own legal representation. Since he chose to fight the charges, he will likely spend a long time in prison. Dhankhar wanted to stay out on bail, but Judge Michael King denied his request. He was then taken into custody. A media report claims that Dhankhar, now 43 years old, will be sentenced later this year after appearing in court in May. Assistance from the PTI bureau in Melbourne.
