Indian community leader Balesh Dhankhar has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for the sexual assault of five Korean women by an Australian court. The court called his crimes “premeditated and elaborately executed.” According to the PTI report, the 43-year-old remained expressionless as the Downing Centre District Court delivered its verdict on Friday, setting a non-parole period of 30 years, according to media reports.
Dhankhar used fake job advertisements to lure women to locations near his Sydney home, where he drugged and sexually assaulted them. He recorded the attacks for his own gratification, according to the Australian Associated Press.
Judge Michael King, while sentencing Dhankhar, described his actions as “manipulative, highly predatory, and displaying complete disregard for his victims.” He further stated, “This was an egregious sequence of planned predatory conduct against five unrelated young and vulnerable women over a significant period.”
The victims, aged between 21 and 27, were either unconscious or severely impaired during the assaults. Dhankhar maintained an Excel spreadsheet, ranking applicants of his fake job postings based on their appearance and intelligence. It also documented his interactions with each victim, including personal details and their level of vulnerability.
Before his arrest in 2018, Dhankhar was a prominent figure in the Indian-Australian community. He founded a satellite group of the Bharatiya Janata Party and served as a spokesperson for the Hindu Council of Australia. He had worked as a data visualization consultant with companies such as ABC, British American Tobacco, Toyota, and Sydney Trains. Arriving in Australia as a student in 2006, he built a reputation as a socially active individual.
However, Judge King noted that Dhankhar’s carefully curated public image was “entirely inconsistent with his seriously flawed and predatory character.”
Following his fifth offence in October 2018, police raided his Sydney apartment and found date-rape drugs along with a video recorder disguised as a clock radio.
In 2023, a jury found him guilty of 39 offences, including 13 counts of sexual assault. Despite the convictions, Dhankhar denied drugging the women or engaging in non-consensual sex, claiming there was a “difference in how I interpret consent, compared to how the law defines consent.”
His non-parole period will end in April 2053, with his full sentence concluding when he is 83 years old.