PATNA: Almost a fortnight after a rape survivor got killed in a road accident, a special court in Patna awarded 10 years rigorous imprisonment to the convict, Sonu Kumar (28), after holding him guilty of sexually exploiting the girl on the pretext of marriage.
The special POCSO court of ADJ-VI Awadhesh Kumar ordered Rs 10 lakh compensation to the rape survivor's two-year-old son fathered by the convict. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 on Sonu.
The special public prosecutor (POSCO Act), Suresh Chandra Prasad, said the survivor was a minor at the time she was sexually exploited several times by the convict.
Prasad said it was via newspaper reports that the court came to know that the woman was killed in a road accident on March 21 this year and an FIR in connection with her death was registered with the Traffic police station at Saguna Mor in Danapur, Patna.
“The convict had eloped with the minor girl in November 2015. He took her to his sister’s residence at Hajipur in Vaishali. Sonu later denied to keep the girl or marry her after his sister came to know about his acts,” Prasad said.
He said an FIR was registered by the then minor girl against Sonu for sexually exploiting her on multiple occasions promising to marry her, with Phulwarisharif police station in Patna on November 4, 2015.
He said the convict was around 23 years old in 2015 when he had sexually exploited her.
“Sonu and the victim later filed a compromise petition before the court and even married each other. The victim had turned hostile in the course of the trial after filing the compromise petition,” he said.
The PP said both of them were kicked out of their homes by their respective parents and they together started living in Hajipur.
He said the convict later again refused to keep her as his wife and kicked her out of his accommodation in Hajipur.
“She started to live alone in Patna. In 2018, she even gave birth to a male child while continuing to live alone until she got tragically killed in a road accident on March 21,” the prosecutor said.
The PP said the victim had approached the court multiple times after Sonu denied to accept her. Prasad said it was the victim’s father who had supported the case strongly which was the major ground of Sonu’s conviction.