Mumbai: A special court under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act on Monday sentenced a 43-year-old man to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment for repeatedly sexually assaulting his 11-year-old daughter in 2017.
The child had lived with the man only till the age of six. The man and his wife, the child’s mother, had a strained relationship and were living separately since 2012. While the mother was living with the daughter in Mumbai, the man lived with their son at their native place in Uttar Pradesh.
Prosecutor Veena Shelar said the couple reconciled in Dec 2016 and the family started living together in Mumbai again only two months before the incident.
As per the complaint lodged by the mother, the man slept beside the daughter and watched obscene content on his mobile phone. She had noticed that her daughter seemed frightened and would not speak with her. The child revealed one day when they were alone that her father was doing ‘bad acts’.
She asked her daughter whom he was doing so with. The child wrote in a book that he was doing so with her. The child also said that he had threatened her not to reveal the matter to anyone. The very next day, the mother lodged the complaint against her husband at the nearest police station in the western suburb where the family lived.
The special court imposed a fine of Rs7,000 on the man and also recommended that the District Legal Services Authority (DLSA) give a compensation to the victim, if she has not received any till date.
