10 yrs RI awarded to man for abducting and raping minor

A city court on Friday sentenced a man to 10 years' rigorous imprisonment for abducting and raping a minor girl.

Additional Sessions Judge, Sealdah, Jimut Bahan Biswas sentenced accused Nur Alam after finding him guilty of abducting the 14-year-old and raping her.

Alam was sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for 10 years under POCSO Act and for five years for 'procurement of a minor for sexual purpose' under Indian Penal Code (IPC). The two sentences will run concurrently.

He was also directed to pay a fine of Rs 50,000, failing which he would undergo an additional six months in jail, the court said.

On May 18, 2017, the girl had gone missing after she went to school and her father had filed a missing report at Phoolbagan police station in the city when she did not return.

Alam was arrested and produced before the court on September 8, 2017.

The accused had claimed that he was in a relationship with the girl.

The girl was lured by the accused to go with him from her school here and thereafter he took her to Siliguri, where he raped her. Police rescued the girl from the Siliguri residence of a relative of Alam and arrested the accused, prosecution counsel Vivek Sharma said.

It was established during the trial that the minor's consent was fraudulently obtained by the accused, who is a married man.

Noting that the girl was aged 14 years at the time of the incident, the court said that "minor cohabitation is rape as her consent is immaterial in the eye of the law".