A court in Mayurbhanj district of Odisha has sentenced a 35-year-old man to life imprisonment for raping a 4-year-old girl. The incident took place in a village under the jurisdiction of Badasahi police station in January 2019 when the girl was alone at home. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 on the perpetrator.
Special Public Prosecutor Manaranjan Patnaik said the accused lured the girl with crackers and took her to a nearby forest on a bike. There, he made her a victim of his lust. Thereafter, he abandoned the victim and ran away. He was nabbed by the police a few days later.
Santosh Kumar Nayak, judge of the POCSO special court, sentenced the convict to life imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 5,000. The decision was made based on the medical report of the victim, whose father has passed away, and the testimonies of 11 witnesses.
In a similar case in Purbani in Kandhamal district, a 62-year-old man was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment on Saturday. Special Public Prosecutor Banamali Behera said the nine-year-old victim was alone at home when the man went there and dragged her to another room and raped her.
The incident took place in the Raikia police station area in March 2021. The court also fined the perpetrators Rs 15,000 under the POCSO Act (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act). The District Legal Aid Bureau was ordered to provide an ex-gratia payment of Rs 5 lakh to the victim’s parents.
