KARACHI: A gender-based violence court has sentenced a man to five-year imprisonment on charges of sexually assaulting a nine-year-old girl in North Nazimabad in 2019.

Muhammad Akram was found guilty of raping the minor girl within the jurisdiction of Shahrah-i-Noor Jehan police station in August 2019.

Additional District and Sessions Judge (Central) Zabiha Khattak pronounced her verdict reserved after recording evidence and final arguments from both sides.

The judge noted that the prosecution had successfully established the case against the accused without any reasonable shadow of doubt.

The judge remarked: “The victim whose age is just nine years fully implicated and identified the accused person and she also described the role as well as shameful act of accused person before the Court in her evidence.”

She cancelled the bail of the convict, who was present in court, and sent him to prison to serve out the remaining portion of his sentence.

During the trial, the minor victim had rightly picked out the accused as her rapist before the court.

She deposed that her brother had gone out to buy meals while her parents had gone to their work on the day of the incident when their neighbour, Akram, came to her house, forcibly took her to his rented room on the first floor of the same building and subjected her to rape.

State prosecutor Hina Naz argued that the material as well as ocular and medical evidence fully corroborated the charges, adding that the testimony of the victim itself was a crucial piece of evidence since she would not lie being an innocent child. She pleaded the judge to punish the accused strictly in accordance with the law.

The accused produced his landlord Abida Tahir as a defence witness, who deposed that Akram was falsely implicated in the case by the complainant. However, she failed to provide any tenancy agreement signed with the accused.

Published in Dawn, February 13th, 2023