New Delhi: A man who raped and molested his minor stepdaughters will serve out the 15-year prison term handed by a trial court, Delhi High Court has said.Dismissing the appeal of the stepfather, the high court lamented the suffering both the girls had to undergo and noted that one of the children passed away after he forcibly brought her home from hospital where she was undergoing treatment.“Tragic and unfortunate would be belittling the trauma undergone by the victims… at the hands of their step-father. The man in whom they, as children, were supposed to find comfort, solace and security, turned out to be the perpetrator of sexual assault. To add salt to the injury, their biological mother also seemingly acquiesced to the trauma… as she kept quiet or did not take the requisite measures to save the children,” Justice VK Yadav said.While police had prosecuted the mother too for not reporting sexual assaults, the trial court acquitted her.The high court noted that seemingly “she was torn between the devil and the deep sea” .Upholding the trial court’s verdict, the high court noted that the “testimony of the victims, more particularly of victim ‘K’ is credible and trustworthy being free from any sort of embellishment or mix up, so far as narration of events is concerned and in any case, corroboration also is there”.The circumstances are “heavily loaded against the appellant in such a manner that there is no escape for him,” the court said.The court noted that the girls faced the sexual assault for about 1½ years before the date of incident in 2014.The police told the court that the complainant’s landlord reported the matter to the police after the girls raised the alarm.
