The POCSO court has sent a Mumbai chicken seller named Mohd Khatir Shaikh to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment in a 2018 sexual assault case. According to a report by India Today, the 58-year-old man, a father of five children, was convicted for undressing a five-year-old boy in his neighbourhood, touching his private parts and masturbating on him.
After hearing all the arguments, Judge MA Baraliya observed: “Prosecution has thus proved beyond a reasonable doubt that accused has committed the offence punishable under Sections 6 and 10 of the Pocso Act,” furthering that “any manipulation of a child’s body part to cause penetration is an offence in itself”.
According to the report, while the prosecution sought maximum punishment for the accused, the defence lawyer had appealed that the court takes a lenient approach, taking into consideration the “poor financial condition” of the accused. “His wife and five daughters stay at his native place and three of his daughters are married. He has the responsibility of his two daughters and wife and also the brother, who is blind and hence considering his family and financial background, a lenient approach may be taken,” the accused’s lawyer told the court.
The court, however, only handed over the minimum sentence, taking into consideration the accused’s meager condition.
The incident that took place in 2018 in Mumbai
The case dates back to April 4, 2018. The child, who was 5-year-old then was playing outside his house, when the accused, whom the child referred to as Murgiwala chacha (chicken seller), lured the minor boy with Rs 2, took him into his hut where he made him sleep on a wooden plank. He then undressed himself and the child and performed the heinous act. He then undressed himself and the child and performed the heinous act.
After some time, the kid’s mother read the petrified look on the 5-year-old’s face and asked him what was bothering him. Without speaking a word, the boy ran towards the upper floor of the house. His mother also rushed behind him.
The minor boy took off his pants and sat down with his head bowed down. Coaxed by his mother, the child wept and narrated his ordeal, following which she confronted the accused.
The accused sought forgiveness saying that the “devil had possessed me. Please forgive me this time.”
The woman told her husband about the incident and a case was registered at the Wadala TT police station in Mumbai.
Besides the parents of the victim, independent witnesses who were present when Mohd Khatir Shaikh aka Murgiwala Chacha confessed his “shaitani galti”, narrated what they had seen.
Recently, in a case pertained to an matter from 2016 where the appellant in the current case was accused of taking the minor victim, aged around 12 years, to his house under the pretext of giving her guava and then proceeded to press her breast and attempted to remove her salwar, the Bombay High Court had ruled that groping without skin-to-skin contact is not sexual assault. The Nagpur Bench of the Court said that the act involving a minor would not amount to sexual assault if the accused did not remove the top of the minor or slide his hands under her garment.
