An Indian-origin man named Balesh Dhankar was convicted in Australia for raping 5 South Korean women after luring them using fake job advertisements.
Dhankar drugged the women in or near his home in Sydney before sexually exploiting them. He was sentenced to 40 years in jail with a non-parole period of 30 years at the Downing Centre District Court on Friday (7th March). He was found guilty of 39 offences including 13 counts of rape at the end of a jury trial that began in 2023.
The extent of perversion of Dhankar, an IT consultant is revealed in an Excel Spreadsheet he created in which he rated his victims based on their looks and intelligence.
In the spreadsheet, Dhankar also recorded his interactions with each victim, their details, and his assessment of their vulnerability and suitability for his vicious plans. He even recorded videos of the sexual exploitation of the victims. All the victims were aged between 21 and 27. They were either unconscious or significantly impaired at the time of the abuse.
District Court Judge Michael King condemned Dhankar’s action in the harshest words. Judge King described his actions as “premeditated, elaborately executed, manipulative, and highly predatory”. He noted that Dhankar’s pursuit of sexual gratification was carried out with complete and callous disregard for each victim.
“This was an egregious sequence of planned predatory conduct against five unrelated young and vulnerable women over a significant period,” the judge said.
