Chandigarh: Man acquitted of raping daughter

CHANDIGARH: A man has been acquitted of raping his minor daughter and the complainant and the girl retracted from their statement in a district court here on Monday and were declared hostile.
Additional district and sessions judge Poonam R Joshi acquitted the man under sections 376 A and B (punishment for rape) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 6 (punishment for aggravated sexual assault) of the Pocso (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) Act after the prosecution failed to prove the case. The matter goes back to January 1, when the girl's mother had called up police against her husband and claimed that the father of three daughters used to beat her up.
She claimed that on that day, she had come home in the afternoon and saw her daughter coming out of the room crying. On seeing her mother, the girl clung to her and asked to be sent to grandmother's house. On being asked what happened, she confided in her mother that her father had been raping her for months. Police registered an FIR (first-information report) on the basis of investigation.
During the trial, the defence lawyer argued that the accused had been framed. The counsel claimed his client had met with an accident.