19-yr-old undertrial in POCSO dies at Taloja jail

Navi Mumbai: A 19-year-old undertrial in a Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) case, on Wednesday, died in judicial custody at the Taloja jail

Navi Mumbai: A 19-year-old undertrial in a Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) case, on Wednesday, died in judicial custody at the Taloja jail. The deceased, identified as Karan Pramod Sirian, was lodged in jail since September 26.

An Accidental Death Report (ADR) has been registered. “We have not been able to get in touch with the family. One number that we got is not reachable. We are waiting for some family member to come and claim the body,” said Kharghar police sub inspector Santosh Khade. (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

On Tuesday, around 3 am, when an inmate entered the washroom, he saw Sirian hanging and raised an alarm. The police claimed that the deceased died by suicide.

“The exact reason why he killed himself is not known. We suspect that either other inmates would have warned him saying that he won’t ever get bail as he had been booked under POCSO or the fact that the family could not afford a good lawyer to get him out on account of their poor financial condition, may have depressed him,” said senior police inspector Sandeepan Shinde.

An Accidental Death Report (ADR) has been registered. “We have not been able to get in touch with the family. One number that we got is not reachable. We are waiting for some family member to come and claim the body,” said Kharghar police sub inspector Santosh Khade.

Sirian – a resident of Mumbra – lived with his mother and younger brother. He and his mother did housekeeping work to earn a living. This June he met a 16-year-old girl from Kamothe via Instagram and they got into a relationship. In August, the duo eloped and started living together in Mumbra. Meanwhile, the girl’s parents registered a case against him with Kamothe police. Since the girl was a minor, as per the Supreme court ruling, the police registered a case of kidnapping.

The couple was traced after 8 days and the girl was handed over to her parents. A case under POCSO was registered against Sirian after it emerged that the couple had consummated their relationship

“In such cases, even if the minor victim says that it was consensual, as per the law, we have to book the man under the rape charges. After the arrest, the 19 year old was sent to judicial custody to Taloja jail,” senior police inspector Smita Jadhav from Kamothe police station said.

The purportedly consensual relationships in POCSO cases have been the focus of several judgments by the court and supreme court in the past. There have also been cases wherein the High Court has granted bail in POCSO cases and Supreme Court has set it aside.

In February this year, the Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court (HC) had ruled that the consent of a minor for sexual intercourse is unacceptable under the law and rejected the bail application of a rape accused. The counsel of the accused had contended that the survivor and the accused had an affair and it subsequently led to a consensual sexual relationship. But the bench said that the consent obtained by giving a threat or even simple consent by a minor holds no value in the eyes of law.

In another case in February which came before Supreme Court, the apex court had observed that once prima facie it appears that the prosecutrix was a minor, the grounds that there was a “love affair” between her and the accused, is not relevant and cancelled the bail that was granted by Jharkhand High Court.

Meanwhile in November this year, Delhi High Court had remarked that the intention of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act was to protect children below the age of 18 from sexual exploitation and that it was never meant to criminalise consensual romantic relationships between young adults.