Keonjhar: A fast track court here Thursday sentenced a man to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment (RI) after convicting him for the rape of a minor girl. The convict was identified as Okil Munda. The additional district and sessions judge Bijay Kumar Mishra of the fast track court heard the matter and pronounced the order under two sections after convicting Munda for the offence. The judge also slapped a penalty of Rs 15,000 on him apart from the punishment and directed the district legal services authority (DLSA) to pay Rs 5 lakh ex-gratia to the survivor.
In default, Munda has to undergo additional imprisonment for seven months. The judge pronounced the order after examining the statements of 10 witnesses and the police investigation report. This was stated here by public prosecutor Gyanendranath Jena who was pleading the matter on behalf of the state government.
According to the case diary, the survivor was asleep along with her elder sister at home while her mother had gone outside on some work May 31, 2017. Munda barged into the house, picked up and took the minor to a nearby farmland, and raped her there. Meanwhile, failing to find her daughter after returning home, the girl’s mother searched for her outside and heard her screams emerging from the farmland. She rushed there and rescued her daughter in a disrobed condition as Munda had fled the scene. Later, the girl’s mother lodged a complaint at the Telkoi police station. Police arrested Munda and produced him in court for the offence.