Indian-origin man linked to BJP in Australia sentenced to 40 years for raping five Korean women

Balesh Dhankhar, an Indian-origin community leader in Australia, has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for the “elaborately executed, manipulative and highly predatory” rapes of five Korean women, reported 9News.

Dhankhar is the founder of the Australian wing of the Overseas Friends of BJP, an official support group of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the country. He was convicted of 39 offences, including 13 counts of rape, six of administering an intoxicating substance, 17 of recording intimate videos without consent and three of indecent assault.

A Sydney jury found him guilty on all charges in April 2023.

Dhankar lured the women with fake job advertisements for Korean-to-English translation work. He met them at a bar in Sydney’s Hilton Hotel before drugging and raping them, either at the hotel or his nearby apartment. Police later found extensive video evidence of his crimes, as well as date-rape drugs and a hidden recording device at his home.

Sentencing Dhankhar on Friday, District Court Judge Michael King said he could find no comparable case in the state of New South Wales. “This was an egregious sequence of planned predatory conduct against five unrelated young and vulnerable women over a significant period,” King observed.

The court noted that Dhankhar had meticulously documented...

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