No evidence: HC acquits 6 accused in human trafficking & rape case
Bhopal: A division bench of the Madhya Pradesh high court acquitted six accused, including four women, who were sentenced to 10 years in jail by a Pocso court in Chhindwara for human trafficking and the rape of a minor.
During the hearing, the court found that the mother of the minor girl lodged a complaint about her 'missing' daughter almost a year after she went missing. A week later, the girl lodged a complaint at the police station, naming the accused in her FIR. The court further noted that the girl in question eloped with other boys twice earlier. There were no documents to prove that she was a minor. The court acquitted all the accused in the absence of credible evidence.
According to the prosecution, the girl went missing on March 16, 2013. However, her mother lodged a report about her missing daughter on March 12, 2014. The girl surfaced a week later and lodged a complaint that she was sold by some persons and raped by the person who bought her. She also named the accused in the FIR.
In her statement to the police, the girl said she was a student at Rani Laxmibai School and, since her mother was not keeping well, she also started working as domestic help with one of her friends.
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The accused, Anjum, Shanti Bai, her daughter Rajni, and son-in-law Kailash Yadav, took her and her friend to Bhopal, where they met Anjum's mother, Khairunnisa. From Bhopal, they went to Susner through Shujalpur.
In Susner, she was sold to Vijay Singh. She was asked to wear a saree, and some cash was put in her lap. She was 17 years of age then. Vijay forcibly married her and sexually exploited her for nearly a year until she escaped and reached the police station.
The Chhindwara police investigated the case and charge-sheeted it in a Pocso court. The court sentenced all the accused to 10 years in jail.
The bench of Justice Atul Sreedharan and Justice Anuradha Shukla, hearing the criminal revision petition of the accused, observed that there was no force used to take the girl to Susner and hand her off to Vijay Singh. The girl appeared to have gone with them on her own. In her statement, she said that at Susner, she was asked to wear a saree, and some cash was put on her lap.
An engagement ceremony was being performed without informing her.
The girl was a student, and she must have seen ceremonies like this taking place before marriage. There was no document to substantiate that she was a minor at that time, except for the date of birth written in the school document based on the information given by her parents.
The medico-legal test on the girl failed to give a conclusive opinion on rape, as she was with Vijay Singh for almost a year.
The mother of the girl lodged a complaint about her missing daughter a year after she went missing. She didn't inquire from any of the accused about her daughter during this period either. It appeared that the girl went with the accused after informing her mother. The court believed that it was with the agreement of the girl that she was taken to Susner and married to Vijay Singh.
The girl's friend, in her statement, said that she 'eloped' with other boys on two occasions earlier. Her mother was aware of it. There was no evidence regarding the age of the girl. In such a situation, the accused were acquitted for want of credible evidence, and the Pocso court order was set aside, the court said.
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