Noida: A Pocso court has acquitted a man accused of raping a 16-year-old girl in Spectrum Mall’s parking area two years ago after all three prosecution witnesses, including the girl and her parents, turned hostile. It also ordered registration of a miscellaneous case against the girl’s father for allegedly filing a false complaint under BNSS Section 383.An FIR had been registered on April 8, 2024, after the girl’s father told the cops at the Sector 113 police station that the man had sexually assaulted her in the mall’s parking lot. He told the police that about four days earlier, the man, his neighbour, had asked if his daughter could help manage the Chaitra Navaratri rush at a store he owned at the mall.He claimed that on April 7 he was told by a woman whom he didn’t know that the shop owner had raped his daughter in his car in the mall’s parking area. He added that the girl had confirmed that the ‘uncle’ raped her and threatened her with dire consequences if she disclosed the matter to anyone.A case was registered against the neighbour under IPC sections 376 (rape) and 506 (criminal intimidation) and sections 3/4 of Pocso Act. Police arrested him and filed a chargesheet on May 28 the same year. The sessions court took cognisance and framed charges against the accused on Oct 16. The man pleaded not guilty and claimed trial.The prosecution presented only three witnesses – the minor girl and her parents. The girl, however, denied in court that she had been sexually assaulted by the ‘uncle’. Her father, too, denied any wrongdoing by his neighbour and described him as a good person.He said he had got a call from his daughter to pick her up on April 7, and when he went to the mall, he found his daughter had got involved in a fight at the parking lot. So, he went to the police station the next day to file a complaint, but it was not about her rape. He failed to identify the person who had taken down his complaint at the police station and denied recording a statement. His wife also denied any sexual assault on her daughter and stressed that the police never asked her any questions.The defence counsel said the police filed a false complaint and demanded acquittal of his client. A medical test of the girl was conducted but the prosecution did not present the doctor who conducted the test as a witness. “Although the defence counsel has admitted the genuineness of the papers, merely on this basis the man cannot be held guilty, especially when the key witnesses have not supported the prosecution’s narrative at all,” additional sessions judge Abhishek Pandey said.
