MUMBAI: A special Pocso court has sentenced a 40-year-old driver from Mankhurd to 20 years’ rigorous imprisonment for repeatedly raping his 16-year-old sister-in-law wile his wife was undergoing treatment in hospital.
Special Judge R.J. Pawar held that the victim’s testimony was “natural, consistent and trustworthy” and held that the prosecution had proved beyond reasonable doubt that the accused had repeatedly subjected the teenager to penetrative sexual assault and threatened her into silence. The court also convicted him of criminal intimidation.
According to the prosecution, the victim, then 16, and her brother had been staying at their elder sister’s home in Mankhurd to help care for her after a hernia surgery. The accused lived there with his wife and their four children.
The first assault took place roughly four months before August 27, 2021, during an earlier period when his wife was in hospital. The second occurred on August 25, when the victim was alone at home with the children.
The case came to light on August 27, when the victim pleaded with her sister not to leave her alone before another hospital visit. On being questioned, she disclosed the assaults. The family, with the help of a neighbour, alerted the police, leading to the registration of an FIR the same day.
Judge Pawar noted that the victim consistently stated that the accused bolted the door, undressed her despite resistance, silenced her when she attempted to raise an alarm and threatened to kill her before sexually assaulting her.
Her account was corroborated by her brother’s testimony, her statement before a magistrate, the prompt FIR and medical evidence. Although no conclusive forensic evidence was produced, the court held that this gap was not fatal to the prosecution case.
The defence claimed that the victim was involved with another boy and had falsely implicated the accused at that boy’s instance. The accused’s daughter, the sole defence witness, admitted during cross-examination that she had no personal knowledge of the allegations and was only repeating what her father had taught her. The court rejected the defence theory, observing that a false allegation of such gravity would ordinarily not be made against a relative in the absence of any discernible motive.
While deciding the sentence, the court noted that the accused, the victim’s brother-in-law, had violated a relationship founded on trust. “By committing such a heinous crime,” Judge Pawar wrote, “he has brought disgrace to the pure relationship”.
The judge finally sentenced him to 20 years’ RI and imposed a fine of ₹3,000 under Section 6(aggravated penetrative sexual assault) of the Pocso Act. He was additionally sentenced to two years’ imprisonment and fined ₹2,000 for criminal intimidation, with both sentences to run simultaneously.
