New Delhi: A court has convicted a man of sexually assaulting a five-year-old boy in a 2022 Pocso case, observing that a child of such an age “would never implicate an unknown person without any motive”. Holding the boy’s testimony to be “so natural” that it could not be disbelieved, the court convicted the accused of all charges.Dismissing all contentions raised by the defence, additional sessions judge Ajay Nagar said, “The survivor… isn’t supposed to make such allegations of oral penetrative sexual assault against the accused or any other person putting the dignity of himself at stake.”In 2022, the boy, then aged between four and five years, accompanied his father to a playground in Shahbad Dairy. Soon, the father could not locate the child, and started searching for him along with others. According to prosecutor Rajesh Sirohi, the boy was found with accused Shakir Asgar in a compromised position, and Asgar was beaten by the crowd. Police were alerted and a case was registered under Section 377 (sexual intercourse with minors) of IPC and Section 6 (aggravated penetrative sexual assault) of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.The defence argued that the investigating officer had failed to find any independent public witness. Police explained that nobody from the crowd had agreed to participate in the probe, prompting the judge to observe that “it is a matter of common knowledge that public at large is generally reluctant to join the investigation as they don’t involve themselves in the cases of police and the court”. The court also noted that the defence itself had failed to produce any such witness.Rejecting the plea of false implication, the court held that the accused had failed to establish any motive for the child or his family to do so.The judge also rejected the defence’s attempt to question the child’s credibility as the father’s submission allegedly differed from the boy’s version. “He (the survivor) knows even better than his father being a victim of sexual exploitation by the accused,” he observed, upholding the child’s version.
