Digital Rape Conviction – In a rare court order, a 65-year-old, Akbar Ali, a resident of Malda, West Bengal, was awarded life imprisonment for ‘digital rape’ on Tuesday.
The Surajpur Sessions Court sentenced him for digitally raping a 3 year old girl at the Salarpur village in Noida Sector 29 in 2019 case.
The accused was booked under IPC 375 (Rape) as a sexual offense, and under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offence (POCSO) Act.
How Does This News Matter?
- After the brutal rape of Nirbhaya in Delhi, the state recognized digital rape as a sexual offense and included it as a Crime under India’s rape laws in 2013.
- Before Nirbhaya incident, the offence was viewed as an act of molestation under the legal purview and was not viewed as an act of rape. Rape laws approved by the Parliament thereafter recognized its new definition.
The CRIME
- Akbar Ali, a visitor from Malda, West Bengal, to Noida was sentenced life imprisonment last week for committing a nefarious act on his neighbour’s 3 year old daughter.
- Based on complaint and investigation, the medical evidence and eight testimonies were produced before the court.
- Ali was charged under the POCSO Act, and IPC 375 and 376.
- In 2019, during a visit to his married daughter’s home in Noida, Ali allegedly “digitally raped” a 3 year old girl.
In January 2019, Akbar Ali lured his neighbour’s girl, offering her chocolates. He then took the child inside his deserted house and digitally raped her.
After the girl returned home crying, her parents lodged an FIR against the 65-year-old, FirstPost reported. “Based on the complaint, a medical examination of the child was conducted which later confirmed rape,” public prosecutor Nitin Bishnoi said.
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What Is Digital Rape?
- Digital Rape crime does not refer to the online or virtual rape as its name suggests. Instead, it refers to the act of forcefully penetrating someone’s private parts using their ‘DIGITS’ i.e. fingers, thumbs, or toes.
- As cited, the digital rape was not considered rape until the incident in 2012.
- The term was coined in 2013 to provide justice to young girls and women.
Other Reported Cases Of Digital Rape
- Last month in August, Manoj Lala, a 50-year-old from Noida, was arrested for digitally raping a 7 month girl child.
- In June 2022, a father from Noida was accused of digitally raping his 5 year old child, and was arrested after his wife’s FIR.
Statistics Of Rapes In India
- As per the report of 2021 by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) released this week, India registered over 31,000 cases of rape.
- Delhi registered 1,250 cases of rape while Haryana about 1700, and UP registered 2,845 cases of rape in 2021.
- As per Legal Service India, in 29% of the rapes, the perpetrator knows the victims/survivor.
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