Pune: The court of additional sessions judge Dilip P Ragit convicted and sentenced a dairy farm owner from Purandar to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment for repeated rape and aggravated sexual assault on his two nieces, aged 13 and 14 years, between Jan and Nov 14, 2020, in a couple of lodges in Uruli Devachi under the Loni Kalbhor police area.The court convicted the accused for offences under both Indian Penal Code as well as Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act related to repeated rape and aggravated penetrative sexual assault on woman below age of 16 years by a relative or a person of authority. These offences provided for a minimum sentence of 20 years in jail.According to the case put up by special prosecutor Arundhati Brahme, four years prior to the crime, the mother of the two minor rape survivors started living with her stepsister and the latter’s husband, the accused, in Katraj because of frequent quarrels with her husband. Later, she and her husband, along with their two daughters, shifted to a house in Uruli Devachi, where the accused and his wife would visit them at regular intervals.The prosecution’s case was that the accused would take the two minor girls out on some pretext and sexually assault them in lodges in Uruli Devachi. The incident came to light when one of the rape survivors narrated her woes to her aunt (mother’s real sister). The Loni kalbhor police registered an FIR on Nov 21, 2020, based on a complaint lodged by the mother of the rape survivors and filed a chargesheet on Jan 20, 2021.Judge Ragit held that the evidence of the rape survivors was corroborated by their mother, maternal aunt and the medical practitioner, who examined the girls. Apart from these three witnesses, the evidence by the lodge owner, the registrar of births and deaths, panch witness and investigating officer was “consistent, corroborative to each other, free from infirmities and inconsistencies, and inspiring the confidence”, and the same was enough to prove the offences of penetrative sexual assault/rape by the accused on the two minor rape survivors, the court said.The court observed that the accused, being a relative in a position of trust, had breached that trust. It convicted him for offences punishable under sections 376-2f (rape by someone in a power or trust over the victim), 376-2n (rape repeatedly on same woman), 376-3 (rape on a woman under 16 years of age) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC, along with sections 3, 4, 5(l) and 6 of the POCSO Act, and sentenced him to rigorous imprisonment for 20 years and a fine of Rs30,000.The accused has been in jail since his arrest on Nov 21, 2020. The court directed that the period of detention undergone by the accused during the trial be set off against the sentence.
