Life term for 56-year-old Odisha man who raped two minor sisters

A special court for POCSO (Protection of Children against Sexual Offences Act) in Cuttack has sentenced a 56-year-old man to life imprisonment on the charge of kidnapping and committing rape of two minor sisters (six and eight years old respectively) two years ago.
The convict – Harish Chandra Barik – had raped the minor girl on 16 November, 2020 near the riverside spot in Sadar police station jurisdiction of the Cuttack district.
Subas Kumar Behari, the Additional District Judge-cum-Special Court under POCSO Act, after cross-examining 17 witnesses, statement of the victim and circumstantial evidence, found the man guilty of committing the offence and convicted him on Monday, said Special Public Prosecutor Ramesh Chandra Mohanty.
The court also directed the State Legal Services Authority to award a compensation of Rs 5 lakh each to the rape survivors keeping in view the facts and circumstances of the case and the age of the victim at the time of occurrence of the crime.
“Perpetrators of sexual offences on innocent children are psycho-social deviants, who cannot lay any claim to leniency. It is in the order of nature, and is the sacred right of every living being to blossom from infancy, to childhood, to adolescence and, finally, to adulthood. This order of nature is thrown into violent disarray by the sexual predators of children. Children are to be protected and saved and the sexual offence on them is to be nipped in the bud by administering severe punishment to the miscreants”, the special POCSO Court judge Behari observed in the judgment.