A Panchkula court on Friday convicted a man for raping a 16-year-old minor girl and sentenced him to 12 years in prison. The court also slapped a fine of Rs 1 lakh on the accused. Additional District and Sessions Judge, Praveen Kumar Lal, on Friday convicted one Sandeep Kumar a resident of Bhogpur Colony, Kurukshetra, in Haryana, under Section 346 (wrongful confinement) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and sentenced him to prison for 12 years under Section 4 (punishment for penentrative sexual assault) of the Protection of Children From Sexual Offences(POSCO) Act along with imposing a fine of Rs 1lakh. As per available, the victim's father had lodged a police complaint at the Sector 14 police station on June 12, 2018. The father had alleged in his complaint that his daughter had come to visit him from Rajpura and had then abruptly left the house without informing anyone. The girl had then gone missing for a few days. The victim’s father named Sandeep Kumar in his complaint. Acting on the complaint, the police had launched an investigation and brought the girl back five days later, on June 17, 2018. A subsequent medical checkup of the girl later had confirmed that she had been raped. The police then arrested Sandeep Kumar on June 26, 2018 and challan was presented in the court for prosecution on September 21 of that year.
