A man was sentenced to three years of rigorous imprisonment by a court in Palghar district of Maharashtra for sexually harassing a 15-year-old girl in 2013.
Additional District Sessions Judge S S Gulhane last week found Rupesh Patil (26), a labourer, guilty under IPC sections 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) and also under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
Besides awarding the sentence, the court also imposed a fine of Rs 5,500 on Patil, a resident of Tembhi-Khodave in Palghar district.
The prosecutor told the court that the accused and the victim, then aged 15, lived in the same locality in the village.
The accused started harassing the girl, a Class x student, from March 2013. He would whistle on seeing her. Once he threw a chit at her, in which he wrote an objectionable message. When the girl shared it with her parents, they reprimanded him.
"However, on July 13, 2013 when the victim was returning home from school, the accused held her hand and put his hands around her shoulder. Frightended, the girl ran away and told about it to her parents," the prosecutor said.
Her parents lodged a complaint, after which the accused was arrested.
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