Pune: The court of additional sessions judge (POCSO Act) SS Saste has convicted and sentenced a 77-year-old watchman to five years rigorous imprisonment for an aggravated sexual assault on an eight-year-old Std II girl on the premises of a housing society along the Katraj Kondhwa Road on March 6, 2024. The convict, who was aged 75 years at the time of the crime, will get the benefit for the time spent in jail ever since his arrest on March 7, 2024, till the pronouncement of judgment, the court ruled. As such, he will spend another three years in jail. The prosecution’s case was that around 1.30pm on the day of the incident, the girl was waiting for her school van inside her housing society. The accused called her to sit on a bench in the society garden area and touched her inappropriately to the extent of committing an aggravated sexual assault. The girl managed to set herself free as her school van arrived to pick her up. On returning from school the same evening, she narrated the incident to her parents following which her father lodged a complaint the next morning with the Bharti Vidyapeeth police and the watchman was arrested. The police charged the accused with offences under sections 354 (outraging modesty) and 354-A (sexual harassment) and sections 7 and 8 (sexual assault), 9m and 10 (aggravated sexual assault) and 11 and 12 (sexual harassment) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. The court held the accused guilty of all these charges.However, the court preferred to sentence the accused under section 9m read with 10 of the POCSO Act while observing that under Section 42 of the Act, there was no need to pronounce separate sentences. The court primarily relied on the evidence recorded by the survivor while convicting the accused. “There are no major contradictions or omissions in the evidence of the victim and the complainant. In cross-examination nothing material has come to disbelieve their evidence. There is nothing on record to prove that the victim was tutored by her father to tell against the accused. Minor contradictions in the evidence of victim and informant are not sufficient to infer tutoring or false implication,” the court said. “Further, family members, more particularly parents, would not falsely implicate anyone by putting at stake the character, career, future of their middle childhood girl. The victim has absolutely no reason to falsely implicate the accused,” the court added.Special public prosecutor NP Konghe told TOI, “The court relied on documentary evidence to establish that the victim was below 12 years of age at the time of the offence, thereby attracting aggravated provisions under the POCSO Act. Considering the age of the accused and possibility of his suffering from old age disease, the court imposed minimum punishment prescribed by law. The accused was also fined Rs 10k, of which Rs 7k is to be paid to the victim as compensation.“
