24-year-old youth sent to 10 years in jail for raping minor

A youth has been sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for 10 years by a Delhi court for kidnapping and raping a minor.
Additional Sessions Judge M C Gupta awarded the jail term to Pawan Kumar, 24, a mechanic at an electronic goods store, after holding him guilty of kidnapping, wrongfully confining, causing hurt by means of poison, criminal intimidation and raping the 15-year-old girl.
The court also imposed a fine of Rs 25,000 on him.
"I am of the considered opinion that the ends of justice can be met by sentencing convict Pawan Kumar alias Deepu to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of 10 years under Section 363 IPC (kidnapping) and Section 376 IPC (rape)," the judge said.

According to the police, Pawan, a resident of Uttar Pradesh, kidnapped the minor girl in April 2011, while she was going to her friend's house.
On the way, he gave her a drink laced with an intoxicant due to which she became semi-conscious and he took her to his rented room in Shakurpur here, it said. Pawan was a former colleague of the girl's father and they knew each other.

Later on, when the victim asked him as to why he had kidnapped her, he threatened to kill her brother and took her to his house at his native village Ganesh Pur in Uttar Pradesh. He repeatedly raped her for over 10 days, the police said.

When the girl did not return home, her father started searching for her and lodged an FIR with police, it said.
The girl was rescued after 12 days from Pawan's house in his native village and they were brought to Delhi.
During the trial, Pawan claimed that he was innocent and was falsely implicated in the case.
After his conviction, he sought leniency, saying he was economically weak and also had to take care of his family.