Kerala Man Sentenced To 20 Years In Jail For Rape Of Minor Girl

Fast Track Special Court judge Satish Kumar handed down the sentence to the 22-year-old man for the offence of repeated aggravated penetrative sexual assault of the minor under the POCSO Act.

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A court on Tuesday sentenced a man to serve 20 years in prison for raping a 14-year-old minor girl last year in Ottapalam area of Palakkad district. Fast Track Special Court judge Satish Kumar handed down the sentence to the 22-year-old man for the offence of repeated aggravated penetrative sexual assault of the minor under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) Act.

The court also sentenced him to three years and one year for the offences of sexual assault under the POCSO Act and house trespass under the IPC, respectively, the Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) in the Pattambi POCSO court, Nisha Vijayakumar, said.

It also imposed a total fine of Rs 1.75 lakh on the convict, the SPP said. The crime was committed at the residence of the minor girl when she was alone at home.

From the arrest of the accused to his sentencing took barely a year, the SPP, who was assisted by advocate Divyalakshmi, said.

Around 22 documents were placed before the court by the Ottapalam police team, led by CI Baburaj and SI Siva Sankaran, and 20 witnesses were examined, the SPP said.

Earlier in December 2022 in a similar incident, Additional District Sessions Court in Thiruvananthapuram awarded life imprisonment to both the accused — Umesh and Udayankumar — in the rape and murder case of a Latvian woman. It was reported that the 33-year-old Latvian tourist was found missing from Varkala on March 14, 2018, and her body was found on April 20, 2018.

As reported earlier, Umesh and Udayankumar were declared as convicts on December 1 by the court. As reported earlier, the victim, her partner Andrew and sister Ilzie had arrived in Kerala for ayurvedic treatment at a facility in Thiruvananthapuram's outskirts when she went missing on March 14, 2018.

She was last seen hiring an auto-rickshaw to Kovalam. She was not carrying her passport or mobile phone with her when she went missing. The prosecution said, the woman with a history of clinical depression was reportedly invited for sharing white beedi, a local cigarette with marijuana.

(With PTI inputs)