Holding the girl’s hand and saying “I love you” proved costly for the young man, sentenced to two years in jail

In Maharashtra’s capital Mumbai, holding the hand of a minor girl and saying “I love you” proved very costly for a 19-year-old youth. A special POCSO court in Mumbai has sentenced the accused youth to two years of rigorous imprisonment in this case.

The court held the youth guilty under the POCSO Act

According to the news agency report, the court has given this verdict in a case registered under the POCSO Act, made for the protection of children from sexual crimes. Judge Ashwini Lokhande said that the words spoken by the accused have definitely hurt the heart of a 14-year-old minor girl. The court had convicted the accused of molestation after the hearing on July 30. However, the accused was acquitted of the charges under the stringent POCSO Act.

The case is from 2019

According to the prosecution, the minor girl’s mother lodged a complaint at the Sakinaka police station in September 2019. The complainant told the police that her daughter had gone to a nearby shop to buy tea leaves but returned home crying.

According to the complaint, upon questioning, the girl told her mother that a man followed her on the first floor of the building, held her hand and said ‘I love you’. However, the youth had pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. During the trial, the prosecution examined four witnesses, including the victim and her mother, to prove the guilt of the accused.

The accused declared himself innocent

During this time, the accused in the court declared himself innocent and while defending himself claimed that he was having an affair with the victim and he himself had called her to meet him on the day of the incident. However, the court said in its order that if the victim had an affair with the accused, she would not have told her mother about the incident out of fear.

Accused accused of threatening

Moreover, when the girl’s mother went to speak to the accused after the incident, he threatened her and told her to “do whatever she wanted”, the evidence of the victim and her mother proved the allegations to be true. The court told the accused’s lawyer that no evidence was produced before the court to prove the evidence given to be false.

Moreover, the facts of the victim’s love affair with the accused were denied by both the witnesses (the minor girl and her mother), the court said, adding that their evidence inspired confidence. The words uttered by the accused certainly hurt the dignity of the victim, who was just 14 years old at the time of the incident, the judge said in his verdict.