Carpenter from Thane district sentenced to 10 years in jail for raping stepdaughter

Thane, Sep 27 (PTI) A special POCSO court in Maharashtra’s Thane district has sentenced a 50-year-old carpenter to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment for raping his teenage stepdaughter, making her pregnant and forcibly aborting the fetus.

In his order on Thursday, Judge DS Deshmukh of the special court, dealing with cases under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, also fined the convict Rs 5,000.

During the trial, Special Public Prosecutor Sandhya H Mhatre told the court that the carpenter repeatedly raped his stepdaughter, then 17, in March 2016 while they were staying at a construction site in the Kashimira area.

The stepfather was exposed after the girl became pregnant and he took her to a hospital in Mumbai for an abortion.

Mhatre said 10 prosecution witnesses were examined to prove the charges against the carpenter. The deposition of the witnesses and medical reports nailed him, she added. PTI COR NR