Child abduction: Man gets 3-yr jail
CHENNAI: A 35-year-old man was on Tuesday sentenced to three years in prison for kidnapping a girl, aged five, last year.
The court said prosecution had failed to prove the charge of sexual assault. However, since it had proved that the man kidnapped the child, he was being awarded the sentence for that charge alone.
The child’s family were street dwellers in the city and she was sleeping with her parents on March 4, 2018 on a footpath when the incident occurred.
Special Public Prosecutor L Srilekha argued that J Thiagarajan had taken the child to a secluded spot and touched her inappropriately. The child was rescued by its mother and uncle who woke up hearing cries.
The man, a friend of the victim’s uncle, was sleeping along with the family on the day of the incident. In the middle of the night, he allegedly gagged the victim, took her to a secluded spot and sexually assaulted the child, prosecution argued.
Defence counsel argued that medical report submitted as evidence in the court did not disclose anything of sexual assault on the victim. Also, the evidence from both eyewitnesses- uncle and the mother- were contradictory on the occurrence of the incident. The court found Thiagarajan not guilty under POCSO Act.