Dhar (Madhya Pradesh): The court of special judge Pankaj Singh Maheshwari sentenced 21-year-old Gokul, a rape convict to 20-year imprisonment. The court delivered the judgement even after the victim turns hostile, but the allegations were proved by scientific evidences.
Court found Gokul, a resident of Indraval Village under Kanwan police station in Dhar district guilty under Section 363 (kidnapping), 366 (inducing a minor girl), 342 (wrongful confinement) of the
Indian Penal Code and Section 5(L)/6 of POCSO Act 2012.
Additional district prosecution officer (media in-charge) Archana Dangi informed that on July 9, 2021, the victim's uncle reported at the Naogaon police station claiming that his niece had gone somewhere from home without informing. He suspected that his niece was lured away by some unknown person. Police registered a missing report and recovered the girl the next day. In her statement to the police, the victim told that the accused raped her repeatedly on the pretext of marriage.
Based on her statement, police booked the accused Gokul.
Initially, the victim gave statements against the accused in the main examination, but after seven months, the victim retracted her previous statements on cross-examination.
Nevertheless, the Special Court, in the light of a judgment in Samarjeet Singh vs. MP in 2015 the court said that in the case at hand, the victim has been won over or she must have been threatened for not supporting the prosecution, therefore the statements made in the cross-examination cannot be trusted and the accused was punished on the basis of her statement given during the main examination.
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