Mumbai Crime: Minor Boy Sexually Assaulted By Mother’s Friend

Mumbai: The Ghatkopar police have arrested a woman for allegedly assaulting her own minor son. Two more have been booked, including a man, for the offence of penetrative sexual assault on the minor boy. The complainant in the case is the 13-year-old boy’s father, who approached the police on Tuesday.

In his statement, the 45-year-old Pune-based man said the incidents occurred when the victim used to stay with his mother in Ghatkopar.

Brutal 'punishment' at the hands of the mother

The victim, after many years, revealed that when he lived with his mother, 42, between October 2018 to May 2019, she used to bring her friend, a 45-year-old man, and her sister, 38-year-old to their house.

The minor, then a class 3^rd student, revealed that his mother frequently assaulted him and even burned his arms and legs as “punishment” with a steel spatula, the man she brought home sexually assaulted him in the presence of the other two accused.

According to the police, the victim was forced into oral sex which falls under the offence of penetrative sexual assault, section 4 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. The father of the victim also alleged that when the boy tried to resist the act, his mother and her sister would punish him further.

During this time, the complainant was in Murbad, living separately, for work-related purposes. After many years, when the victim moved with his father in Junnar, a city in Pune, his behaviour stirred suspicion but the boy never revealed anything, apparently due to the fear of his mother, said his father. However, last week he finally opened up and told his father everything. 

Currently in class 9, the boy, as per his father, is depressed and stays aloof. Police have arrested the victim’s mother, while the search for the other two accused is underway. She presented in court and was remanded to police custody, police said.

In the case registered against the three accused, police have added the charges of section 377 (unnatural sex), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code and section 4 (penetrative sexual assault), 6 (aggravated penetrative sexual assault), 8 (sexual assault) and 12 (sexual harassment) of the POCSO Act.