Another 9-Year-Old Raped And Murdered, This Time In Kolkata
Tanmaya is a budding journalist
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By Tanmaya Das
First publised on 2021-02-06 06:10:49
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Tanmaya is a budding journalist
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In a shameful and grisly incident, some people sexually assaulted and murdered an nine-year-old girl in an abandoned building at Jorabagan, North Kolkata on Thursday. Since Wednesday evening, she was reported missing. Her semi-naked body, teeth smashed other evidence claimed that she was sexually assaulted before the murder. The police have arrested one Ram Kumar alias Lambu, the 45-year-old security guard of the building complex where the girl stayed with her parents. The security guard is reported to have lured the child with biryani and chips inside his quarters. It is not immediately known whether others were involved too. Ram Kumar has been charged with IPC and Pocso sections for rape and murder.
But with courts taking strange views in Pocso cases, it remains to be seen how the case proceeds. A few days ago, a judge of the Bombay High Court had decreed that groping minor's breast without skin to skin contact is not sexual assault. The verdict sparked a controversy and was later stayed by the Supreme Court. Unless there is clarity in the provisions of the Pocso Act, judges would continue to come out with these strange interpretations and perverts will go scot free and be emboldened to assault other children.
Although the court had described the act as an offence of outraging a women's modesty under IPC section 34 (2), such misconceptions diminish the seriousness of cases of sexual assault. Indirectly, it implies that something highly offensive and unfortunate has to happen before come judges see it as sexual assault.
The Pocso Act, 2012, provides for protecting children from sexual assault, sexual harassment and pornography. There are specific provisions for protecting them from people who they hold in trust. India has also arranged special courts for trials of such offences. But these crimes are not diminishing.
In the instant case, the guard was someone who the child would trust naturally as he was the protector. He was there even before the girl was born. Yet he misused his position of trust to rape and kill the child. The only way to stop these crimes is to investigate speedily and thoroughly and punish the perpetrator as per law within three to six months.
