Ghaziabad: A special Pocso court of additional sessions judge Neeraj Gautam awarded two life terms to a Muradnagar man for the rape and murder of his five-year-old niece. While the first life term was sentenced under Section 302 of IPC (murder), the other life term, awarded under Section 5/6 (aggravated penetrative sexual assault) will be effective until the end of his natural life.The man was also sentenced under Section 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) and Section 377 (carnal intercourse against the order of nature).The court found the incident did not qualify as a crime under the rarest of rare category and refused to award capital punishment. However, it imposed a fine of Rs 1.3 lakh and ordered that Rs 1 lakh be given to the parents of the child as compensation.The court gave credence to the testimony of the minor’s uncle, who testified as an eyewitness and confirmed seeing the minor with her uncle, the accused.The case dates back to an FIR registered with Muradnagar police on April 8, 2019 by the minor’s father. The girl went missing the previous night and her body was found the next morning in a nearby field.As per medical findings, cops included Section 376A and Section 377 IPC along with Section 302 and Section 201 IPC. The accused was identified from CCTV footage and was arrested the next day. A chargesheet was filed on June 1, the same year, while the court framed charges on March 13 the next year.The prosecution presented 7 witnesses, including the plaintiff, the minor’s father; one of her uncles as an eyewitness; the doctor who conducted the post-mortem; and investigators in the case. The defence, on the other hand, produced 4 witnesses, including the minor’s mother, grandfather, and 2 locals.The defence argued that the prosecution did not prove the CCTV footage under Section 65B of the Indian Evidence Act. The court, however, observed that the eyewitness saw the accused going into the forest with the girl before the incident.Special public prosecutor Utkarsha Vats argued that most of the witnesses examined by the defence were listed as prosecution witnesses in the chargesheet, but due to their attempts to protect the accused during the trial and their vested interests, the prosecution did not examine them as witnesses.Having heard both sides, the court concluded that since the prosecution succeeded in proving the fundamental elements related to the alleged offence, the presumption under Sections 29 and 30 of the Pocso Act is also applicable against the accused.“The prosecution proved the offence related to aggravated penetrative sexual assault against the accused beyond a reasonable doubt. Therefore, in the facts and circumstances of the present case, the above presumption is applicable against the accused. The prosecution successfully proved that the accused committed the crimes of murder, rape, unnatural sexual acts, destruction of evidence, and aggravated sexual assault,” the court said.
