Kerala court gives man three life sentences for sexual assault on minor daughter
Thiruvananthapuram (PTI): A Kerala court has sentenced a man to three life terms for repeatedly sexually assaulting his six-year-old daughter in July last year.
Thiruvananthapuram Fast Track Special Court (FTSC) judge R Rekha sentenced the man to life imprisonment for each of the offences under sections 5(l) (penetrative sexual assault on a child repeatedly), 5(m) (penetrative sexual assault on a child below 12 years) and 5(n) (sexual assault of child by a relative through blood or adoption..) of the POCSO Act.
Confirming the sentence given to the man, special public prosecutor (SPP) R S Vijay Mohan said on Tuesday that the father was also additionally sentenced to varying sentences under various provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) and the IPC for a total of 21 years.
Besides that, the court also imposed a fine of Rs 90,000 on the 40-year-old father, the SPP said.
However, as the punishments have to be undergone concurrently, the man will serve a life sentence, the prosecutor said.
The prosecutor said that in its order on sentence, the court observed that he is a stain on the trust associated with fatherhood.
The court also said that a father who is supposed to protect his daughter has committed a heinous crime, according to the SPP.
It also observed that such an act can never be justified as through such a crime, the childhood of the victim has been lost.
The incident occurred in July 2023 when the victim's mother was working in the Gulf region and the girl was living in her father and maternal grandmother's homes.
The SPP said that the child was sexually assaulted when she was staying with her father.
According to the girl, her father took her inside a room by promising to show her the mobile phone and then sexually assaulted the child, the SPP said.
As the girl felt pain in her private parts as a result of the assault, she told her grandmother who took her to a doctor, the prosecutor said.
The child told the doctor what happened, and on the doctor's instructions the police were informed and a case was registered, the SPP said.
Even the victim's 15-year-old sister testified in the court that the father used to behave inappropriately when he came home drunk, the prosecutor said.
The trial in the case started on March 29, 2024 and was completed within a month, the SPP said.
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Our relationship with both India and Pakistan is 'good': US
New York/Washington (PTI): America’s relationship with both India and Pakistan is “good”, the US State Department has said, asserting that the diplomats are "committed to both nations".
Speaking at a briefing on Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said that the US working with both nations is good news for the region and the world, and will promote a beneficial future.
“I would say that our relationship with both nations is as it has been, which is good. And that is the benefit of having a President who knows everyone, talks to everyone, and that is how we can bring differences together in this case. So it's clear that the diplomats here are committed to both nations,” Bruce said.
She was responding to a question on the possibility of increased US assistance to Islamabad in terms of arms sales following Pakistan Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir’s meeting with Trump, and whether this was coming at the cost of Trump's relationship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Referring to the May conflict between India and Pakistan, Bruce added, “Obviously, we had an experience with Pakistan and India when there was a conflict, one that could have developed into something quite horrible.”
She said that there was "immediate concern and immediate movement" with Vice President J D Vance, President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in “addressing the nature of what was happening….we described the nature of the phone calls, the work that we did to stop the attacks and to then bring the parties together so we could have something that was enduring."
She also claimed that top leaders in the US were involved in “stopping that potential catastrophe.”
New Delhi has been maintaining that India and Pakistan halted their military actions following direct talks between their militaries without any mediation by the US.
Bruce added that the recent peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan “follows negotiated peace arrangements between Cambodia and Thailand, Israel and Iran, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, India and Pakistan, Egypt and Ethiopia and Serbia and Kosovo.”
Meanwhile, in an interview on Tuesday, Rubio said that “credit goes to” Trump for helping bring several conflicts around the world to an end.
Trump says he wants “to be the President of peace. And so any time we see a conflict where we think we can make a difference, we get involved, and we’ve had good success in that regard. India-Pakistan, Thailand-Cambodia, the peace deal with Azerbaijan and Armenia, just a few days ago,” he said in an interview with ‘Sid and Friends in the Morning’.
