A 24-year-old man was sentenced to 20 years in jail for raping a 15-year-old girl in Maharashtra`s Navi Mumbai, reported the PTI.
The court of Additional Sessions Judge Parag Sane in Belapur found the accused identified as Govindkumar Harilal Nirmal (24), a vada-pav stall labourer, guilty under IPC Section 376 (3) and multiple provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, the news agency reported.
The court also imposed a concurrent 2-year rigorous imprisonment sentence under IPC Section 506 for criminal intimidation.
The case
According to the PTI, the incident took place in July 2019.
Nirmal pulled the victim, a Class 10 student, from a common water tap into his house and allegedly raped her twice.
As per the prosecution, he put a speaker on full volume to drown out her screams. After she got pregnant, her kin got a case registered in December 2019.
Relationship was consensual: Defence
The defence claimed the relationship was consensual. However, the court, in its order, said it had no difficulty to act on the testimony of a victim of sexual assault alone to convict an accused where her testimony inspires confidence and is found to be reliable, as per the PTI.
Girl subjected to sexual assault: Court
Underscoring that a survivor cannot be viewed with suspicion, the court added, "It must not be overlooked that a woman or a girl subjected to sexual assault is not an accomplice to the crime, but is a victim of another person`s lust," reported the PTI.
Courts cannot cling to a fossil formula and insist upon corroboration if the case strikes the judicial mind as probable, it added, the news agency reported.
55-year-old man held for raping 13-year-old girl in Palghar
In an another incident, earlier this month, a 55-year-old man was held for allegedly raping a 13-year-old girl in a forest area in Maharashtra`s Palghar district, police had said, reported the PTI.
The accused, a resident of a village in Vikramgad taluka of the district, was arrested following the incident.
A complaint in was lodged by the elder sister of the victim, an official from the Kasa police station said.
The complainant said she and her sister had approached the accused on April 30 to seek herbal treatment for her irregular menstrual cycle. The accused is known among villagers to provide herbal treatment to people, he said, according to the PTI.
"On May 3, the accused visited the residence of the victim. Under the pretext of procuring a medicinal plant for her treatment, he took the complainant, her 19-year-old sister and some of their relatives in a car," the official said.
The group departed from Dahanu around 11.30 pm. After driving a short distance, the accused parked the vehicle by the roadside near Charipawan around 1 am. He lured the teenage victim to accompany him into the nearby bushes under the guise of gathering the medicinal plant and instructed other passengers to remain inside the vehicle, said the official, according to the PTI.
"Once in the secluded forest area, the accused raped the minor victim and subsequently threatened her with dire consequences if she disclosed the incident to anyone," the official said citing the complaint, as per the PTI.
A case was registered against the accused under sections 64 (1) (rape), 65(1) (rape of a girl under 12 years of age), and 351(2) (criminal intimidation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) along with sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, the news agency reported.
(with PTI inputs)
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