Mumbai: Man who told girl ‘chal mere saath’ gets 4-year jail

MUMBAI: Observing that winking at a 12-year-old girl, showing her a Rs 100 note and saying “chal mere saath” (come with me) amounted to sexual harassment, a city Pocso court has convicted and sentenced a 28-year-old man to almost four years in jail.
Holding the accused, Mohamed Mansuri, guilty, the court said his actions suggested that he “had committed the act with no other reason but sexual intent to commit sexual assault”. Mansuri was arrested in March 2017, and released on bail in January 2018. However, he absconded and was re-arrested in May 2018. He has been in jail since. The court sentenced him to the time he has served.
The child’s mother told the court that in March 2017, her daughter came crying and told her about Mansuri.
She said on a couple of occasions earlier too, the man had followed the girl and made similar gestures. The mother said she immediately informed her husband and they went looking for Mansuri, whom they found eating ice-cream at a nearby market. She said with the girl pointing at Mansuri, her father caught hold of the man and slapped him. Soon, a mob gathered and beat up Mansuri before he was taken to police station and an FIR was registered.
Among the seven witnesses examined by special public prosecutor Veena Shelar were the child, her mother, a teacher to help establish her age and the investigating officer. “Upon evaluating the testimony of the star witnesses—the girl and prosecution witness 2 (her mother)—corroborated by other evidence, the prosecution has been able to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt that the accused had stalked the victim on March 6, 2017 and even prior to that,” the court said. “There is no probability brought on record suggesting any previous enmity between the victim and the accused, so as to falsely implicate him. There is nothing in her testimony to suggest that she was tutored in any manner so as to falsely depose against the accused. There is no reason to discard or disbelieve her version,” it added.