New Delhi, April 30 (IANS) A Delhi court Saturday awarded 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment to a man who sexually abused his minor stepdaughter for almost four years before the crime came to light in 2009 in north Delhi.
The court also suggested considering enactment of a law for surgical and chemical castration of such convicts, on the lines of penal provisions for similar offences in many developed countries.
Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Kamini Lau said: ‘The accused Dinesh Yadav is held guilty of the offence under Sections 376 (rape) and Section 354 (assault or criminal force to women with intent to outrage her modesty).’
‘Yadav is awarded rigorous imprisonment for a period of 10 years,’ said Lau, while also imposing a fine of Rs.25,000 on him.
‘If this is not the case for which the highest punishment is called for, then there can be no other case worse than this. In my view, it is time that we as a civil society stand up and also think of a law similar to the one existing in many developed countries providing for surgical and chemical castrations,’ she said.
The additional public prosecutor had called for the maximum sentence to be imposed upon the convict submitting that he, being the stepfather of the victim, committed ‘intrafamilial child sexual abuse’ and deserved no leniency.
The young girl is of 15 years and her stepfather is a 35-year-old labourer. After the death of her biological father, her mother Bhagwati Devi married Yadav. Bhagwati Devi has five children from him.
Initially the girl lived with her maternal grandmother but when she was around eight years old, she started residing with her mother and Yadav in Swaroop Nagar.
‘The accused had been raping the prosecutrix over the period of four years prior to the date of the incident and had committed rape upon her on three to four occasions prior to the incident was reported to police June 13, 2009,’ said the prosecution.
‘Yadav had been sexually abusing his minor daughter for almost three to four years prior to the reporting of the incident and whenever his wife, the mother of the prosecutrix protested, she was badly beaten and battered.’
‘The convict in the present case represents the depravity and abysmal depth to which a man can go, for here is a case where the convict does not spare his own daughter and beats and batters his wife when she wants to come to her rescue,’ Lau said.
‘This is a crime which is required to be addressed differently and a full public debate with regard to imposition of castration (both surgical and chemical) as an alternative punishment for the offence of rape and molestation is the crying need of the hour,’ the judge said.
‘The recent years have seen a spurt in molestation, rape and other sexual offences. Sexual predators moving around the city spare none. Be it a child of few months or a senior citizen,’ she said.
‘Young girls are not safe even in their own families where fathers and brothers turn predators. It is sickening indeed. Rape is a growing menace which the administration is finding hard to tackle. Even stringent punishments so prescribed under the law do not appear to be having any deterrence,’ said Lau.
