MELBOURNE
\nBalesh Dhankhar, a prominent member of the Indian community in Australia and former chief of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the country, was found guilty of raping five Korean women in Sydney after drugging them, a media report said which described him as \u201cone of the worst rapists\u201d in the city\u2019s recent history.
\nA District Court jury in Sydney\u2019s Downing Centre found the \u201cpolitically connected predator\u201d lured five Korean women into a web of lies, paralysed them with drugs and hoarded trophies of his callous assaults, the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper reported.
\nIt also reported that he was the former chief of the \u2018Overseas Friends of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)\u2019 in Australia. Dhankhar also recorded his sexual assaults using a camera hidden in his bedside alarm clock and on his phone, it said. \u201cBalesh Dhankhar is one of the worst rapists in Sydney\u2019s recent history,\u201d it said.
\nDhankhar, a data expert, cried as the jury foreman replied \u201cguilty\u201d to each of the 39 charges against him. He asked to remain on bail but Judge Michael King refused before Dhankhar was handcuffed and led away by officers.
\nDhankhar, 43, will face court again in May and will be sentenced later in the year, the report said. Dhankhar sold his family\u2019s assets and properties to fund his legal defence. He was assigned a rising star barrister.
\nIn 2018, police found dozens of videos of Dhankar with other women, the report added. Sometimes the women are unconscious, other times they struggle and groan as if in a nightmare.
\nThe videos were sorted into folders, each labelled with a Korean woman\u2019s name. Then detectives found a series of bookmarks in Dhankhar\u2019s browser. One video went for 95 minutes, a montage of unconscious women subjected to sexual violence.
\nThe contents of the videos are too confronting to describe in detail. The jury writhed as they watched the videos. At one stage it became too much and they asked to be sent home early, the report said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MELBOURNE Balesh Dhankhar, a prominent member of the Indian community in Australia and former chief of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the country, was found guilty of raping five Korean women in Sydney after drugging them, a media report said which described him as \u201cone of the worst rapists\u201d in the city\u2019s recent history. A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327509,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-327498","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n