A special court, designated under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, on Friday, sentenced a 31-year-old to 10 years of imprisonment for sodomizing and threatening to kill a 17-year-old boy with intellectual disability.
A psychologist, who had examined the victim and assessed that he had the mental age of a seven-year-old, was amongst the witnesses in the case. Special Public Prosecutor Veena Shelar said the boy had identified the accused in court as the one who had sexually assaulted him. His testimony was taken by the court with the help of an interpreter.
The incident took place in August, 2016, in a public toilet in Chembur where the boy was called by the accused. However, the complaint was lodged only seven months later. The father of the boy had hesitated to approach the police, as the man had threatened him with consequences if he did so.
In his testimony before the court, the victim said that the man had physically assaulted him on the head and legs before stripping his clothes and sexually assaulting him. He said the man had also forced him to take his private part in his mouth. He had then threatened to kill him if he revealed it to anyone. He had, however, told his father once he got home late and his father asked him the reason for being late. The boy told the court that, when his father had gone to the man’s home to inform his family, he had slapped his father. The complaint was lodged only when he experienced pain in his private part and his father took him to the hospital, where the doctors advised him to approach the police.
(To receive our E-paper on WhatsApp daily, please click here. To receive it on Telegram, please click here. We permit sharing of the paper's PDF on WhatsApp and other social media platforms.)
