Trio acquitted from POCSO case after spending 5-and-half years in jail

Mumbai: After spending five-and-half-years behind bars in the gang rape case of a minor girl in October 2017, a special POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act) court last month acquitted three men

Mumbai: After spending five-and-half-years behind bars in the gang rape case of a minor girl in October 2017, a special POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act) court last month acquitted three men.

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As the medical report did not suggest any use of force, the court accepted the case of the accused that one of them was in a relationship with the girl and the other two were falsely implicated for being with him.

As per the case registered by the Santacruz police station, the 17-year-old girl alleged that the accused resided near the house of her friend. She would often visit her friend and also would stay overnight there. On November 1, 2016, the accused committed sexual assault on her and also threatened her to not reveal anything to anyone about it.

The girl claimed that a few days later the accused again called her to meet at his friend’s house, by threatening to release the video of the act which he had recorded of the incident of November 1, 2016, if she failed to turn up. Under the threat, she said, she followed his instructions reluctantly and, in this fashion, the accused called her multiple times and sexually assaulted her.

On October 29, 2017, the girl said she had gone to her friend’s house and stayed there at night. She claimed that when she went to attend nature’s call, the accused called her at his friend’s house and was forced to drink alcohol. After that, she claimed that the accused and his friends took turns raping her.

The next day, on October 30, 2017, she and her mother went to the Santacruz police station and lodged a complaint. During her medical examination after registration of the FIR, the girl was found pregnant.

Her boyfriend in his defence claimed that from the year 2016, the complainant knew him and they were in a relationship. Her mother and friends knew about their relationship. He denied that the complainant was below 18 years. He denied the existence of any video clip of a sexual relationship between him and the complainant or threat to make it viral. He stated that earlier he and the complainant were in love and wanted to marry.

The accused claimed that he had seen the girl with another man Aakash and thereafter they had broken up.

The defence claimed that it has come from the evidence of the survivor that 4 months after this case she married her boyfriend. It is pointed out that the DNA of the accused did not match that of the foetus. The blood of her boyfriend was also collected for DNA testing as she was pregnant at the time of the crime, but the prosecution deliberately did not produce the positive report of DNA profiling, defence lawyers Anjali Patil and Prakash Salsingikar pointed out.

Besides, the court noted that there was no evidence on record that the survivor was forced to drink alcohol by the accused as her blood report was negative for traces of alcohol. The court also refused to believe the allegation of forcible sexual intercourse with the survivor by any of the three accused, as the medical report did not indicate any signs of the use of force.