34-year-old man sentenced to 20 years of RI for raping a Minor | Representative Photo
Thane: The Thane’s special Prevention of Children against Sexual Offence Act (POCSOA) court has convicted a 34-year-old man who was arrested in 2021 by the Bhayander police for raping a 5-year-old child, thereby sentencing the man to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment.
The court while sentencing the accused with maximum punishment maintained that the case fell under the provisions of the POCSO Act post the 2019 amendment and as per the amendment, the punishment provided for such an offence offence under Sec. 5(m) punishable under Sec.6 of POCSOA, is not less than 20 years and extend to the life and also liable to pay a fine. Therefore, statute has not given any discretion for the offence of rape of a minor, to the court to award the sentence for this offence lesser than 20 years of RI.
The prosecution’s case dates back to February 11,2021, when the accused Dinesh Mandal, a Bhayander resident, took the victim girl with him on the pretext of feeding her Pani Puri and took the child to his house and raped the child. When the child’s mother came home she realised that the child was not present in the house.
The victim’s mother was then informed by the victim’s grandmother that Mandal had taken the child to eat Pani-Puri. However when the mother went to Mandal’s house, she saw him wearing his short pants with her child sitting on the mat holding two Rs 10 notes.
The case further states that when the mother asked the child about the money, the child informed the mother that the accused had given her money to eat pani puri and touched her inappropriately and further raped her. Medical evidence have supported the prosecution’s case.
However the accused held that the victim’s mother was running a prostitution business and that she had filed a fake case against the accused.
Considering the medical records produced by the prosecution, they did match with the swaps produced before the FSL, thus proving that the accused had raped the minor.
