Life Imprisonment for Man Raping 4-Year-Old, Kandhamal Convict Gets 20 Years

A 35-year-old man received a life sentence for raping a four-year-old girl in Odisha's Mayurbhanj district. The incident occurred in 2019 when the girl was alone at home. Another similar case saw a 62-year-old man sentenced to 20 years in jail for raping a nine-year-old girl in Kandhamal.

A court in Odisha's Mayurbhanj district handed down a life imprisonment sentence to a 35-year-old man for raping a four-year-old girl. The incident took place in January 2019 when the girl was alone at home. The man lured her with biscuits, took her to a forest on his bicycle, and raped her, according to Special Public Prosecutor Manaranjan Pattnayak.

On Saturday, Judge Santosh Kumar Nayak of the special POCSO court sentenced the man to life imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 5,000. The verdict was grounded in the testimonies of the survivor and 11 witnesses, as well as her medical report.

In a related case, a 62-year-old man in Phulbani, Kandhamal district, was sentenced to 20 years in jail for raping a nine-year-old girl. The incident occurred in March 2021. Special Public Prosecutor Banamali Behera said that the man dragged the girl to another room and raped her while she was alone at home. The court fined the convict Rs 15,000 and ordered the District Legal Aid Authority to pay Rs 5 lakhs to the survivor's parents.