Man sentenced to 20 years RI for raping stepdaughter in Arunachal

Itanagar, Feb. 11 (PTI): A POCSO court in West Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh has sentenced a 35-year-old man from Assam to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment for repeatedly raping his 14-year-old stepdaughter.

West Kameng POCSO Special Judge Tageng Padoh on Thursday also imposed a fine of INR 5,000 on Bhawani Chetry, a native of Assam’s Biswanath district.

Chetry was also awarded one-year simple imprisonment under Section 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code and an additional fine of INR 2,000 was slapped on him. He will have to serve an additional six months in prison if he fails to pay the fine amount.

He had raped the girl thrice between March 2020 and April 2021 in three different locations in Kelengteng village in Lungla police station area and near Sangetsar Lake in Tawang district when the survivor, a student of Taksang residential school, returned home.

Chetry had also threatened to kill the girl if he revealed the incident to her mother. However, the survivor informed her friends who in turn informed the residential school authorities about it.

Based on the survivor’s complaint, he was arrested in April last year.