Man gets life for raping teenager inside masjid
The unsuspecting girl went with him but he locked the room and raped her.
Mumbai: A special POCSO court on Friday sentenced a 70-year-old man to life imprisonment for raping a teenage girl in a masjid in Govandi in 2013.
Sessions judge M.A. Baraliya held Niyaz Ahmed Raza guilty of rape, unnatural sex and outraging a woman’s modesty under relevant sections of the POCSO Act and IPC. The judge imposed a fine of Rs 88,000 on Raza and directed that the amount be paid to the victim as compensation.
On January 9, 2013, the victim’s father was returning home from work when his friend and social activist, Mohammed Mangura Shah, showed him an obscene video clip on his mobile phone and asked him if he knew the girl in the video. Realising that the girl was his daughter (13), the father went home, spoke to his wife, and after taking his daughter into confidence, asked her about the video. The girl revealed that about a month ago when she was going to give her exams, Raza told her that he had prepared a poem for her exam and took her to a first-floor room of a nearby mosque where she used to learn Arabic.
The unsuspecting girl went with him but he locked the room and raped her. He also recorded the act and circulated it among his friends and acquaintances, little imagining that it would ultimately reach the girl’s father.
The joint efforts of public prosecutors Geeta Sharma and R.S. Kanojia and the investigating team of PSI Amol Shinde and constables Rajesh Phiske, Sudhir Jashar and Amol Chaugale led to Raza’s conviction.