Ghaziabad: Man gets 20 years’ jail for raping 15-year-old girl

A Ghaziabad court sentenced a 25-year-old man to 20 years for raping a 15-year-old girl in 2022, with a ₹1 lakh fine and additional imprisonment for non-payment.

Ghaziabad: A 25-year-old man was handed 20 years of rigourous imprisonment by a Ghaziabad court on Friday for raping a 15-year-old girl in 2022.

According to the prosecution the incident happened on June 27, 2022, when the man dragged the minor, who was on her way to attend tuition classes (Photo for representation)

The court headed by special judge Neeraj Gautam of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act, stated, “The convict...is awarded 20 years of rigorous imprisonment along with a penalty of ₹1 lakh under IPC Section 376(3), and non-payment of the penalty will attract six months of additional imprisonment.”

According to the prosecution the incident happened on June 27, 2022, when the man dragged the minor, who was on her way to attend tuition classes, to an under-contrucution building and raped her. An FIR was filed on June 28, 2022 at the Nandgram police station.

“The girl was going to her tuition class and met her friend midway. In the meantime, the convict, then aged 21, and three other boys (all minors) arrived at the same spot. The convict gagged her mouth, dragged her inside an under-construction building and raped her. The other boys beat up the girl’s friend outside,” Utkarsh Vats, special public prosecutor (Pocso) told HT.

The girl, in her statements before the court, said that the convict also issued threats and asked her not to disclose the incident to anyone.

“During the incident, the three boys told the man that his uncle was coming. They hid me and my friend in another room. When his uncle passed by, the man released us and sent two boys behind me to see where I was going. He threatened me, saying that his uncle has contacts in the police and his father is in the police,” the girl said in her statement before the court.

The prosecution produced six witnesses, including the girl, during the case trial.

The police filed a chargesheet against the convict on August 22, 2022, under IPC sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 376(3) (rape of a woman under 16 years of age) and also under provisions of the Pocso Act. Vats said that the case against the three minors is proceeding separately as they were not part of the crime.