A man has been convicted for raping his minor niece and pushing her into prostitution by a fast track court which relied on testimonies of the victim and officials of a shelter home, where she was lodged after escaping her tormentor.
The fast track court, set up to try cases of sexual offence against women, held Delhi resident Pankaj guilty of raping his 15-year-old niece, whom he had brought here from their native place in West Bengal, and forcing her into flesh trade following which she had become pregnant.
"This case unfolds the sad and sordid tale of a young girl," Additional Sessions Judge Virender Bhat said, noting that she was first raped and then thrown into prostitution by her own uncle. "The girl had become pregnant and the pregnancy had to be aborted later on," he said.
The quantum of sentence will be pronounced next week.
According to the prosecution, Pankaj had brought the girl to Delhi in 2010 and started sexually assaulting her and he also used to call other persons to his house to rape her for which he was taking money from them.
The girl had told the police that when she refused to obey him, Pankaj would beat her and sometimes she was also sent out with strangers. The family of the accused were aware of these things, she had said.
On August 3, 2011, when a stranger who had taken her dropped her near her house, she ran from there and with the help of a shopkeeper, she contacted the police which sent her to welfare home Nirmal Chhaya.
The officials of the welfare home told the court that the girl had informed them that she had been raped by her uncle and was being forced to "entertain customers" brought by him. They also told the court that the girl was pregnant and on her request, her pregnancy was aborted at a government hospital here.
The accused, in his defence, said that neither he knew the victim nor he had brought her from her native village.
The court, however, rejected his contention and convicted him for the offences under the IPC relating to rape, abetment to rape, wrongful confinement and under the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act relating to living on earnings of flesh trade, taking a person for the sake of prostitution and detaining her at the premises where flesh trade is going on.
