A Pocso court in Odisha’s Nayagarh district on Tuesday sentenced a 21-year-old man to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of ₹6,000 for sexually assaulting and murdering a five-year-old girl in 2020.
The Posco court in Nayagarh sentenced him under Section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Posco) Act and sections 376 (sexual assault), 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) after examining 31 witnesses and scrutinising 135 exhibits and 18 material objects, said public prosecutor Chittaranjan Kanungo.
As there were no eyewitnesses in the case, the court relied upon circumstantial evidence and other witnesses. As there was no direct evidence, taking the help of scientific and other psychological experts, a charge-sheet was filed
On July 14, 2020, the five-year-old victim was reportedly abducted when she was playing outside her house in Jadupur village of Nayagarh district. Ten days later, the girl’s skeletal remains were found dumped in the backyard of the house. The CID, which took up the case, said the accused was alone in his house when he took the victim to a room and sexually assaulted her. As she opposed the act, he strangulated her to death.
CID officials said the accused seemed to be addicted to pornography, especially child pornography, and had watched such porn videos throughout the previous night on his sister’s mobile phone.
{{/usCountry}}CID officials said the accused seemed to be addicted to pornography, especially child pornography, and had watched such porn videos throughout the previous night on his sister’s mobile phone.
{{/usCountry}}He even tried to have sex with the corpse, but later put the corpse along with the clothes inside a gunny bag and dumped it at a bush near a pond in the village and covered the gunny bag with coconut tree branches.
Realising that he forgot to keep the girl’s leggings in the gunny bag, he again went to his house to get it and later threw it in the pond.
The case had triggered public resentment in the state with the girl’s parents attempting self-immolation alleging police inaction in the case. They had also alleged that the accused were being shielded by minister Arun Sahoo who hails from Nayagarh.
However, Bijay Mishra, advocate of the accused, said he is not happy over the judgment and will move the high court. “The prosecution could not prove the allegations against the accused. The motive has also not been proved. The prosecution had cooked up a story and the judgement was based on it.”
In her reaction, the victim’s mother said, “I am not happy over the verdict. The real culprit has not been arrested. Babuli Nayak (who is allegedly an associate of Sahoo) has killed my daughter and no one else is involved. My daughter has been murdered and an innocent has been implicated. We will definitely raise our voice against this injustice. Even if the accused had confessed, we do not know what has happened. We have not got justice. We have been telling this from the beginning and bringing allegations against Babuli Nayak. During the investigation, the investigating agency tried to falsely implicate others to save minister Arun Sahoo.”