NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Tuesday said it would pronounce the quantum of sentence in the Muzaffarpur shelter home case on February 11 even as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) pushed for life imprisonment of convict Rajesh Thakur.
The court on January 20 had convicted Thakur, who once unsuccessfully contested assembly polls on Bihar People’s Party (BPP) ticket, of several offences under section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, and offences of rape and gang rape under the IPC. Another accused, Rosy Rani, former assistant director of child protection unit in Muzaffarpur, was convicted of offences under section 21(1) (failure to report commission of an offence) of the POCSO Act.
Thakur’s counsel PK Dubey and Nishaank Mattoo said that they would challenge the conviction in a higher court.The court had recorded the statement of 69 witnesses produced by the CBI. It had also recorded statements of 44 girls who were physically and sexually assaulted at the shelter home, of which around 13 were mentally disabled while examining 20 defence witnesses.