The POCSO court will announce the quantum of punishment for convicts Manoj Shah and Pradeep Kumar on January 30.
Representational Image (Photo: IANS)
Two men, accused of kidnapping and raping a 5-year-old girl in 2013 in the national capital, were on Saturday held guilty by a Delhi court.
The POCSO court will announce the quantum of punishment on January 30.
“In our society, minor girls are worshipped as goddesses on certain occasions but in the present case the victim child had experienced exceptional depravity and extreme brutality,” the court observed.
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It further stated that the “crime against the victim was committed in the most grotesque and revolting manner and the collective conscience of the community was shaken,” as it held the two accused — Manoj Shah and Pradeep Kumar — guilty.
Additional Sessions Judge Naresh Kumar Malhotra convicted the two men under sections 366, 342, 376 D, 201, 307, 372(2) of the Indian Penal Code and certain sections of the POCSO Act.
The girl, who came to be known as Gudiya, was abducted on April 15, 2013, just months after the 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case, and kept hostage for two days without food and water in a flat owned by the attacker in east Delhi’s Gandhi Nagar.
She was rescued on April 17 from the ground floor of the building where her family was staying.
The child was raped repeatedly and upon medical examination, a 200 ml bottle and pieces of candle were found inserted into the private parts of the victim.
The horrific incident had sparked protests across the country.
Manoj Shah and Pradeep Kumar were arrested by Delhi police separately from Muzaffarpur and Darbhanga in Bihar respectively in 2013. The charge sheet was filed on May 24 that year and charges were framed by the court on July 11. But, it took more than five years to complete the recording of the statement of 57 prosecution witnesses in the POCSO court.
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