MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court recently confirmed the conviction and life sentence imposed on five persons, including three women, in a case involving immoral trafficking and sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl in 2017.
While four of them, namely Saradha, Ananthi, Priya and Raja, were convicted of forcing the girl into prostitution, the fifth person, Prakash, was convicted of sexually assaulting the girl. (names changed to protect victim's identity)
According to the prosecution, the girl's parents were Sri Lankan refugees. The three women- Saradha, Ananthi, and Priya- were running a prostitution racket. Saradha lured the victim girl into leaving her home and along with Raja, the three women wrongfully confined the girl in a house in another district, where she was sexually assaulted by Prakash multiple times.
When the girl came back to her parents after 12 days, she narrated the incident. Based on their complaint, a case was registered and the five were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment by a Mahila Court in 2019. Challenging this, they filed appeals.
Though a Bench of justices J Nisha Banu and N Anand Venkatesh, which heard the appeals, modified the order to an extent by setting aside the punishment under some of the charges, it still confirmed the life sentence imposed on the convicts.