POCSO court convicts accused for raping, impregnating minor; awards 10 yr sentence

A Special Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) court in Mumbai has convicted an accused of repeatedly raping a 14-year-old minor and sentenced him for 10 years.

Around Rs. 6,000 fine has been imposed on the accused Kailash Baijnath Raut.

The order was passed by Special POCSO judge CA Nathani on Wednesday.

The accused Raut was a neighbour to the victim, who was raped by him on various occasions in 2016.

Later, Raut had threatened the victim on the pretext of exposing her nude videos and pictures of her family and relatives.

The matter came to light when the girl felt pain in her abdomen and was found pregnant in a sonography test at St George hospital. The girl had an abortion under medical supervision.

Later, an FIR was registered at Cuff Parade police station based on the complaint of the victim's mother.

"Though aborted foetus was preserved, DNA sampling of the accused was not done. During the trial, public prosecutor Geeta Sharma demanded DNA sampling of the accused which was allowed. DNA sampling of the accused was key to the conviction as it was matched with the DNA of the aborted foetus," Nathani said.