Kidnapping, abduction cases be dealt with heavy hand: Court

Observing that kidnapping and abduction cases should be dealt with a "heavy hand", a Delhi court has sentenced a youth to seven years in jail for kidnapping a minor girl here last year.
"In cases of abduction and kidnapping, little girls are entitled to protection even if they do not possess sufficient maturity to be able to distinguish between what is evil and what is not. Such offence should be put down with a heavy hand," Additional Sessions Judge Yashwant Kumar said.
The court sentenced 19-year-old Vikas Kumar, a resident of Muzaffarpur in Bihar, after holding him guilty for offences punishable under sections 363 (kidnapping) and 366 (kidnapping or abducting a woman to compel her marriage) of the IPC.

The court also imposed a fine of Rs 8,000 on Kumar who had kidnapped the 14-and-half-year old girl from Jahangirpuri here and had taken her to his village in Bihar.
According to police, the girl's grandmother lodged a complaint last May that she was lured away by some unknown boy. During the probe, it came to light that Kumar, who used to reside in the same area, had enticed her.
A police team was sent to Bihar and Kumar was arrested there and the girl was recovered, the prosecution said.

During the trial, Kumar's counsel said police had not conducted investigation in a fair manner and the girl went with Kumar on her own as she was in love with him.

Kumar also denied the allegation levelled against him.
The police, on the other hand, had told the court that the girl was a minor and Kumar had enticed her away and took her to Bihar where he married her.
During her deposition in the court, the girl said that on May 21, 2012, she had left her house without telling anybody. She said she called Kumar outside her house as her family members were aware of their conversation on phone.
On being cross examined by the public prosecutor during recording of her statement, she admitted she knew Kumar prior to the incident as he used to meet her outside her school. She also admitted that she had married Vikas in a temple in the presence of his family members.

During the arguments, Kumar's counsel had told the court that there were improvements in the testimony of the girl and it would be unsafe to rely on her statement.
The judge, however, convicted Kumar saying, "I am of the considered view that minor contradictions or insignificant discrepancies in the testimony of the prosecutrix (girl) should not be a ground for throwing out an otherwise reliable prosecution case."
The court also held that the girl was below 15 years and "at that stage of age, the girl is not mature enough to understand what she is doing".