Man gets 3 years in jail for molesting former actor on flight

Observing that sexual assault is a "common experience" for women who use public transport, a Mumbai court on Wednesday awarded three years' rigorous imprisonment to a man for molesting a former Bollywood actor on board a domestic flight in December 2017.

Vikas Sachdev (41) was convicted under IPC section 354 (assault or criminal force on woman with an intent to outrage her modesty) by a special court for the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act cases.

After the verdict, Sachdev was granted bail.

Judge A D Deo observedin her order that the case was about a "most common experience of sexual assault" that women face while using public transport.

But women ignore it thinking that there is no likelihood of coming across the assailant after the journey, and therefore such incidents go unreported, she said.

The present case would "demonstrate that elite mode of the transport is not an exception", the judge said, referring to the fact that the actor was travelling in the business class.

The judge also dismissed Sachdev's defence that the victim was suffering "hallucination".

The victim was cross-examined at length but her testimony that Sachdev touched her with his foot while sitting behind her on the flight remained "unscathed", the court said.

The incident took place when the victim, then 17 years old, was travelling by an Air Vistara flight from Delhi to Mumbai. She narrated it through a video post on Instagram.

"So, I was in a flight travelling from Delhi to Mumbai today and right behind me one middle-aged man who made my two-hour journey miserable. I tried to record it on phone to understand it better because the cabin lights were dimmed, I failed to get it...," she said.

"The lights were dimmed, so it was even worse. It continued for another five to ten minutes and then I was sure of it. He kept nudging my shoulder and continued to move his foot up and down my back and neck," she said in the video.

The victim had announced her "disassociation" from the field of acting last year.

Meanwhile, after the verdict was delivered, Sachdev was granted bail and his sentence was suspended so as to enable him to file appeal.

"We will be filing appeal in the High Court immediately. We have a very good caseas she didn't identify the accused during the trial and didn't turn up before the court when recalled," his lawyer Adnan Sheikh said.