Pune: Additional sessions judge SB Shelar in Junnar has convicted and sentenced a 32-year-old man to rigorous life imprisonment for kidnapping and raping a four-year-old girl in a public toilet near the market yard of a village in Junnar tehsil around 1pm on April 20, 2018.Apart from the life sentence, the court on Dec 29 sentenced the accused to seven years in jail for the offence of kidnapping, both under the Indian Penal Code. The court preferred against pronouncing a separate sentence under the POCSO Act provisions.
The prosecution’s case was that the girl’s parents hail from Nepal and were living in the village at Junnar where her father had taken up the job of a cook at a nearby eatery. On the day of the incident, the girl was playing in front of her house when the accused offered her a mango and took her away to the public toilet where he committed the crime. When her family was searching for the girl, her maternal uncle spotted the accused with the girl and brought her back home. She narrated the incident to her parents and a complaint was lodged at the Junnar police station. During the trial, a woman in the neighbourhood also deposed that she saw the accused with the girl. The court relied on this testimony to conclude that the accused was last seen with the survivor before she was reunited with her family.The court held that considering the girl’s tender age at the time of the offence and the long lapse of time, her inability to recall the incident was natural and did not weaken the prosecution’s case. The court relied on other corroborating evidence, including the testimony by the medical officer who examined her, the witness accounts, and forensic and documentary evidence. The judge, while showing no liniency at the point of sentence, said, “On considering the mitigating and aggravating circumstances, the act of the accused, particularly considering the age of the victim i.e. 4 years, outweighs the mitigating factors. The accused committed the said act in broad daylight in a public place, taking disadvantage of the incapacitated minor. The accused was aged 25 years at the time of the offence and in his prime youth. The act of the accused has shaken the collective conscience of the society and it warrants equivalent punishment.”
