A court has sentenced a 72-year-old man to life imprisonment till death for raping an eight-year-old girl in Chhattisgarh’s Korba district in 2023.
Judge Vikram Pratap Chandra of the special court for Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) found the septuagenarian man (name not disclosed to protect the survivor’s identity) guilty on February 19, though the order copy became available on Saturday.
He was awarded a jail term for the remainder of his natural life, said special public prosecutor Arun Kumar Dhruv.
The judge also imposed a fine of Rs 1,000 on the accused.
The incident took place on June 13, 2023, when the girl was playing outside her house.
The accused, who lived in the neighbourhood, took her to his place and raped her in the bathroom by tying up her arms and legs with a rope.
He was booked under POCSO and relevant sections of Indian Penal Code by Kotwali police in Korba city.
The court sentenced the accused to life imprisonment under IPC section 376 (raping a girl under 12 years of age) while making it clear that the life imprisonment would run for the remainder of the convict’s natural life.
