Man gets 10 yrs jail for sexual assault on child

A special court on Thursday sentenced a 33-year-old construction worker to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment for sexually assaulting a 5-yearold child in his neighbourhood in 2016.

The court also imposed a fine of over Rs 30,000 on the man and directed that he spend another 6 months in jail in case he defaults on payment. The fine amount is to be given to the mother of the victim, to be accepted as compensation on his behalf.

In the judgment, special judge Kalpana Patil designated under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, observed that when the victim was asked during his testimony in court whether he could identify the accused, he said he would do so through a photo. When he was asked why, the boy had said he was afraid (of the man). Judge Patil noted regarding this, that it shows the incident had deeply impacted the boy's mind.

The incident took place on February 2, 2016, in Wadala. Around 3.30 pm, the child had gone outside to play but returned crying half an hour later. The boy told his mother that the man, who he addressed as ‘chacha’, had forcibly taken him to his room, bolted the door and committed the act on him. During his testimony in court, he said that he had tried to raise an alarm and also demonstrated how the man had pressed his hand over his mouth. The mother of the child had also testified and said she had found her son’s private part bleeding when he came home crying after the assault.

The man had requested leniency after being found guilty and told the court that he is poor, the only earning member of his family and that he had already spent six years in prison. The prosecution had told the court that the child was only five years at the time of the incident and had suffered mental trauma due to it and thus leniency must not be shown. The time the man has spent as an undertrial in prison will be deducted from his sentence.