PAINTER GETS 10 YEARS IN JAIL FOR RAPING MINOR

MUMBAI: A POCSO (Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences Act) court on Tuesday sentenced a 42-year-old painter from Kandivali to 10 years imprisonment for raping his neighbour’s 17-year-old daughter suffering from epilepsy in 2019.

According to the prosecution, the complainant – the mother of the girl came to Mumbai a year and a half ago with her children. Her daughter, she informed the police, was physically weak since childhood, short-tempered, would suffer from seizures and attempt to inflict i njury to another person if they spoke arrogantly with her.

On July 12, 2019, around 1.30 pm, the girl’s mother rushed home from work, when her elder daughter told her sister was suffering from pain in her waist and abdomen. They rushed her to Shatabdi hospital where the doctor told them that she was 7 months pregnant and that she was experiencing labour pain. Shortly, she delivered a male child. When the daughter did not tell the mother how she got pregnant, the latter lodged a complaint with the Charkop police station against an unknown person. The police later identified the accused and arrested him.

During the trial, the girl said that she lived with her mother, sister, brother, and aunt with physical disability. She and her aunt would sleep in the neighbour’s house as their own room was too small to occupy all the members.

“Uncle (neighbour) and I would sleep on the bed and my aunt would sleep on the floor. It was then that the uncle established physical relations with me on various occasions,” she said in her testimony. However, in her cross-examination, she admitted the act was consensual as she liked the accused.

The court observed that this was not a case of a love affair as the girl was 17 years old and the accused was more than double her age. “Even if it is presumed that the relationship was consensual, then also the victim is a child (minor) and is incapable of giving her consent. Therefore, this is a case of statutory rape as the victim was below 18 years of age,” said special judge SM Takalikar while convicting the 42-year-old for rape.

The accused was convicted under sections 376 (2)(n) (rape) of the IPC and under sections 6, 9(n) 10 of the POCSO Act, 2012.