PESHAWAR: A child protection court in Mardan on Saturday convicted a man of sexual abuse of a minor girl and awarded 14 years rigorous imprisonment and Rs1 million fine to him.

Judge Ijaz Ahmad pronounced that Jan Mohammad was found to be guilty of subjecting the five-year-old to sexual abuse and therefore, he had been sentenced under Section 53 of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Child Protection and Welfare Act, 2010, and Section 377-A of the Pakistan Penal Code.

The court also declared that the prosecution had proved the charge of attempted rape against the accused, so he had been sentenced to five years rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs100,000 under sections 376 and 511 of the PPC.

The FIR of the child abuse was registered by the Choora police station in Mardan on Jan 27, 2019, under Section 53 of the CPWA and sections 376 and 511 of the PPC.

Mardan court also convicted him of rape attempt

Complainant in the case was the girl’s father, who said his minor daughter went out of house to play with neighbours and when he stepped out to offer a prayer, he learned from the children that his daughter was taken away by a man, who had given her a Rs10 currency note.

He said he and his brother caught a man in a nearby sugarcane field after the girl was sexually assaulted by him.

The defense counsel claimed that the report of the medical examination of the alleged assault victim turned out to be negative with no marks of violence on her body.

He said the exercise to match the semen from the trousers of the accused and those of the girl wasn’t carried out to prove the commission of the offence by his client.

Overruling the arguments of the defence counsel, the court referred to the definition of ‘sexual abuse’ given in the CPWA and observed that no marks of violence or wound could only constitute the offence of sexual abuse.

It ruled that non-examination of the accused for the purpose of ascertaining his capability to commit sexual assault was also not necessary for the prosecution to establish the act of sexual abuse or attempt towards the commission of the offence of rape.

The court ruled that all witnesses were consistent in their deposition and no material contradiction had been found in their depositions.

It added that one of the witnesses was not related to the complainant and therefore, he was an independent and an impartial witness.

Published in Dawn, October 4th, 2020