Mumbai: A special court on Monday sentenced a man in his early 30s to five years of rigorous imprisonment for luring a child when she was on an errand and attempting to kiss her.
The incident took place on July 10, 2015, when the 8-year-old girl was sent by her mother to a local shop to buy bathing soap. The child told the court in her testimony when she was 14 years old that the man told her that her father had gone to buy her a sharara and that she must come with him. The child accompanied him and he took her into a building. On the seventh floor, he was trying to enter a flat by using a key when he suddenly pulled her close and tried to kiss her on the cheek. The child resisted and fled.
The child and a woman testify
She told a woman in the same building she ran to for help, regarding what happened to her. The woman and her brother-in-law accompanied the child to find the man, but he was not to be found. They took her downstairs, where people gathered and the girl's mother was also present. The woman told her mother about the incident. At that point, the child pointed out the man to them. A police complaint was then lodged.
Prosecutor Sanjana Sharma said that apart from the child and her mother (the complainant in the case), the woman who had helped the child also testified.
The special court sentenced the man for the offence of kidnapping and also under a provision of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) for aggravated sexual assault. It also imposed a fine of Rs11,000 on him, which it directed be given to the girl as compensation.
