Mumbai: The Thane Special Prevention of Children Against Sexual Offenses (POCSOA) Act court has convicted a 32 year old man who was held guilty for raping his own 11 year old daughter almost 8-10 times. The court has thus sentenced the man to suffer rigorous life imprisonment for a period of 20 years.
The court, presided over by judge D. S. Deshmukh, in the 28-page order copy, has made efforts to show as to how a daughter, who is considered a father’s princess, and the father, who is always her “hero’, in this case, have left a scar in the life of the child, just to fulfill his lust.
The case dates back to August 2020, when JIA (name changed) approached her neighbor, and she was seen tense and stressed. When the neighbor questioned her carefully, Jia replied that her father, Abul Sheikh (name changed), was doing ‘Ganda Kama’, with her.
Jia was the eldest of all the children, in her statement said that when her mother used to go outside for work , Abul, used to ask her siblings to go out of the house and had raped her more than eight-ten times. Only in August, when the neighbor saw the child distressed, was a complaint filed against Abul with the Uttan Safari police stations.
The medical records asserted Jia's claims. The court’s order copy speaks about the trauma that Jia had to face, when she was asked to identify her father before the court. “The child looked stressed and frightened. She kept nodding her head and started crying (after identifying her father). The child was then comforted and told that nobody can harm her and she is safe. Even after that, after seeing the accused child, she started crying uncontrollably. She identified him as her father. While identifying the accused, the child held the hand of the presiding officer tightly and did not leave hand even after the accused again went behind curtains. After much persuasion, the child stopped crying. This was a natural act on the part of the victim child after seeing the accused.”
The accused, however, denied the allegations, stating that he was falsely involved in the case, but the evidence pointed out his guilt.
The court, thus while passing orders, held, “The POCSO Act, 2012 has been enacted to protect the children from the offense of sexual assault and sexual harassment to achieve what has been provided under Sec. 15 and 39 of the Constitution. The act of sexual assault on the child is to be viewed seriously, and such offenses are to be dealt with in a stringent manner. In this case, the accused, being the father of the victim, had repeatedly subjected her to aggravated penetrative sexual assault and threatened her not to disclose the incident to anybody. The punishment therefore should commensurate with the act of sexual assault and should give a clear message to the society at large that perpetrators in such cases are dealt with an iron hand.“
