In a shocking incident, a seven-year-old boy has been accused of sexually assaulting a five-year-old girl in Uttar Pradesh’s Kanpur Dehat district. The incident was reported in a village under the limits of district’s Akbarpur police station on Sunday night after the girl’s mother accused the boy from their neighborhood of sexually assaulting her daughter.
The five-year-old girl’s mother said her daughter had gone out to play when the incident took place. After the mother approached the police, both children were sent to the district hospital and a medical report confirmed rape.
Meanwhile, police lodged an FIR under sections 376 of IPC and section 5/6 of the POCSO Act on the complaint of the girl’s mother on Tuesday.
Notably, section 82 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 under Chapter IV states that “nothing is an offence which is done by a child under 7 years of age”. Therefore, no child under the age of seven can be held criminally responsible.
Akbarpur Kotwali police station inspector Satish Singh said police were treating this case with caution.
“If a child below seven years of age commits a crime, it does not fall in the category of crime. Nevertheless, further action will be taken in this case only after taking legal opinion. The FIR was registered on Tuesday,” he said.
(With IANS Inputs)