Youth acquitted of charge of sexually assaulting minor girl

A youth has been acquitted of charges of sexually assaulting and molesting a minor girl after trespassing into her house, by a Delhi court which said the possibility of his false implication cannot be ruled out.
Additional Sessions Judge T S Kashyap freed East Delhi resident Dushyant, who was accused of sexually assaulting his 15-year-old neighbour at night in April last year.
"The testimony of girl does not inspire confidence and cannot be believed and in view of the material contradictions in the testimony of prosecution witnesses (victim, her mother and investigating officer), the possibility of false implication of the accused at the behest of....(girl's another neighbour) cannot be ruled out....Dushyant is acquitted of the charges framed against him," the court said.

He was accused of sexually assaulting the girl under the Protection Of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and the provisions of IPC including Sections 506 (criminal intimidation), 354 (assault with intent to outrage a woman's modesty) and 452 (house trespass).
According to the prosecution, the incident took place in April last year when the youth came to the girl's room and laid down next to her. He sexually assaulted her and when the minor tried to raise an alarm, the youth gagged her mouth and also threatened to kill her, it said.
Due to fear, she did not tell about the incident to her mother in the night and informed her parents the next morning after which the matter was reported to the police.

During the trial, Dushyant claimed innocence, saying he was falsely implicated in the case at the instance of the girl's neighbour Vishnu who was having previous enmity with him.

"Earlier, an altercation had taken place between Dushyant and Vishnu's son and at that time, Vishnu had threatened the youth to implicate him in some false case," the defence counsel had told the court.
While acquitting the youth, the court said, "No other family member has seen the accused. There was no reason for the girl not to raise any cry on the alleged date, time and place when she was sleeping with eight members of her family including her mother and married brother.

"It cannot be believed that she could have been terrified so much so as not to disclose the alleged facts immediately or within the reasonable time during the night itself to her family members," it said.