Mumbai: A court designated under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act on Friday sentenced a 42-year-old to five years rigorous imprisonment for sexual assault on an eight-year-old child in 2018.
Special Public Prosecutor Meera Choudhari said that Vijaykumar Jaiswar worked at a flour mill that the girl’s mother used to frequent. The incident took place in January 2018.
The child’s mother told court in her deposition that her daughter had returned from school that day and in the evening around 6 told her that she would be going to her grandparent’s house to play, which is in the vicinity.
But after some time, she noticed that the daughter had returned home. Behind her, their neighbour had also come home and asked her if she had given a tin of grains to her daughter to take to the flour mill, which she denied.
She further told court that the neighbour had told her to ask her daughter why she had been to the flour mill, but not scold the child. When she asked her daughter, the child did not tell her anything, so she told her husband about the incident when he came home.
The child confided in her father that the ‘bhaiyya’ at the flour mill had sexually assaulted her. Thereafter, when her husband went to the mill and questioned Jaiwar, he had begged for forgiveness.
The neighbour who had alerted the child’s mother also deposed in court. He narrated that he had peeped into the mill and had seen the girl in a corner of it and Jaiswar standing in front of her.
When he had asked the child what happened, she had said that she had come there to give grains for grinding. He told court that then he followed her back home and enquired with her mother.
