Man gets 7-year RI for rape

On 20 September, 2011 afternoon, the accused visited their house and spiked the victim’s tea. “I was feeling dizzy after having the tea. I asked D’souza to leave and slept on the cot after pushing the door shut. I woke up around 6.30 pm and found that my clothes were disarranged. I thought it was because I was sleeping and thus I did not think much of it,” the victim claimed. A month later, the accused started to blackmail the victim with a video he took of raping her and forced her into maintaining a sexual relationship with him, the victim alleged. “He also kept taking money from me. I could not tell my husband and family fearing that they would not support and believe me,” the victim said.

In 2013, the victim confided in her husband and she lodged an FIR against D’souza with the support of her family.
During the victim’s cross-examination, it was revealed that the victim’s husband was undergoing operations for infertility that were unsuccessful. The victim, however, had a six-month-old girl child when the FIR was registered.
“The DNA report proved that the child was of the accused,” said the defence lawyer Kaushik Mhatre. Moreover,

Mhatre argued that there was no evidence brought on record to prove that there inappropriate pictures and videos taken of the victim. “The duo have visited lodges together in 2011 and the victim being a major, the incident is consensual,” he told the court.

Special judge A S Shende convicted D’souza under sections 376 (rape) 506(b) (criminal intimidation) and sections of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act as the victim belonged to a tribal community.

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