A special court under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) has last Friday granted bail to a 65-year-old paralysed man accused of sexual assault by his seven-year-old niece.
Special judge under the POCSO Act Sanjashree Gharat while allowing the accused bail considered his age, condition of paralysis and the pandemic due to which it will take time to decide the matter on merits.
The court also observed that there is a change in the victim’s statement. While her statements to the medical officer, the magistrate and the Child Welfare Committee speaks about penetrative sexual assault by her father and present applicant, she has later said that due to threats of her paternal aunt, she had initially blamed another maternal uncle, also a co-accused in the case, for the sexual assault.
The 65-year-old Nalasopara resident had claimed bail stating that he had been falsely implicated. His plea said that the victim’s paternal aunt - the complainant in the case, had registered the offence against him to protect her own brother - the victim’s father.
As per the complaint registered at Agripada Police Station, the child’s aunt was informed by her niece that her maternal uncle had sexually assaulted her when she had gone with her mother to maternal grandparents’ home.
Apparently, it was after a quarrel between the child’s parents that her mother had taken her and her brother to her parent’s home. After returning, the child revealed regarding the sexual assault by her maternal uncle to her aunt.
About two months later, she gave a supplementary statement where she said that it is her father who had raped her and it is due to threats of her aunt, that she blamed a maternal uncle initially. Along with this statement, she added that the present accused had sexually assaulted her too, upon which he had come to be arrested.
