The Supreme Court on Thursday quashed the Bombay high court verdict which had held that no offence of sexual assault under the POCSO Act is made out if there is no direct skin-to-skin contact between an accused and victim.
The BJP has accused West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of attempting to separate the state from India by inciting violence and protecting illegal immigrants, drawing parallels to the 1905 partition of Bengal.
A local journalist has been taken into custody and a police constable's role is also under investigation in connection with the alleged abduction and gang rape of a 14-year-old girl in Kanpur's Sachendi area, officials said on Wednesday amid allegations of police apathy by the victim's family.
'Judges have transmitted a terrible message to citizens across the nation. All right-thinking individuals will be disturbed by what the Delhi high court judges have done.'
Uttar Pradesh has the highest pendency with more than three-fourths or 77.77 per cent of the total POCSO cases that were filed between November 2012 and February 2021, according to the data.
He was also sentenced to 20 years rigorous imprisonment each and a fine of Rs 50,000 each under sections 5(f) (penetrative sexual assault on a child) and 5(l) (penetrative sexual assault on a child more than once) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.
Understanding that sexual abuse can be prevented and healing from abuse is possible helps parents respond with calm and confidence rather than react in fear or panic, says Psychologist Namrata Joshi.
Chief pontiff of Murugha Math Shivamurthy Murugha Sharanaru, who has been arrested for alleged sexual abuse of two minor girls, was on Friday remanded to police custody till September 5.
The judge, however, ruled that there was a clear prima facie case under Section 354 of IPC for 'assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty".
57,766 cases of atrocities against the SCs were reported in 2023, the highest in the last three decades.
The data compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau showed that the crime rate in 2023 stood at 39.9 per one-lakh child population, in comparison to 36.6 in 2022.
A 13-year-old tribal girl from Maharashtra's Palghar district was allegedly forcibly married off and raped, police said on Friday.
A Mumbai court granted bail to a teacher accused of sexually assaulting a minor male student. The teacher denies the charges, claiming the case is fabricated due to the boy's parents' disapproval of their relationship.
The father of a rape survivor has appealed to the Supreme Court to cancel the bail granted to Asaram, citing threats and concerns for his family's safety.
A new report indicates a significant rise in reported sexual offences against children in India, but also highlights strong prosecution rates and detection systems.
The incident occurred on September 2 at a madrasa located within the Ranpur police station limits of Nayagarh district.
Former Wrestling Federation of India chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh has consistently denied the allegations.
Police in Palghar, Maharashtra, have registered a case against five individuals involved in the marriage of a 16-year-old minor tribal girl. The case involves charges of rape, human trafficking, harassment, and violations of the POCSO Act, Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
The court took into account that the accused had previously been involved in another case under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, advocate Jose said.
A 14-year-old girl from Maharashtra's Palghar district has alleged that she was forcibly married to a man, sexually assaulted and made to undergo an abortion, police said on Tuesday.
The court said that the accused "inserted this metallic rod inside the private parts of the deceased so mercilessly that even the flesh/ body part separating vagina and anus also got torn." Further, the doctor had also opined that the injuries were sufficient to cause death, the court said.
A four-year-old girl has allegedly been sexually assaulted at a well-known school in Mumbai, leading to the arrest of a female staffer, police said.
Nine people, including two government employees, have been arrested from Kasaragod district in Kerala for allegedly sexually assaulting a 16-year-old boy after befriending him on a mobile app for the LGBTQ community, police said on Tuesday.
Karnataka Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy has expressed his support for a bus conductor, Mahadevappa Hukkeri, who was allegedly assaulted in Belagavi for not speaking Marathi. The incident has reignited the decades-old border dispute between Maharashtra and Karnataka. Five people have been arrested in connection with the assault, but the Minister has called for the arrest of others involved. The attack has also led to allegations of a false POCSO case being registered against the conductor.
Bus services between Karnataka and Maharashtra have been suspended following attacks on buses and their crew. The decision was taken given the tension prevailing in the border district of Belagavi over a sensitive issue. The language row began after a group of people allegedly intercepted a KSRTC bus and assaulted its conductor and driver for not speaking to a passenger in Marathi. The passenger, a minor girl, also filed a complaint stating that the conductor misbehaved with her. However, the family of the minor girl has decided to withdraw the case and urged people to stop escalating the matter into a language dispute between Karnataka and Maharashtra.
The Supreme Court has scheduled a hearing for November 12 to address the statutory age of consent for adolescents, emphasizing the need for a continuous and comprehensive examination of the issue. The Centre defends the current age of consent, while an amicus curiae suggests lowering it.
A 35-year-old woman teacher was arrested for allegedly making an obscene video call to a minor male student on a social media platform in Navi Mumbai.
According to the FIR, the girl, aged 17 years and seven months, was full-term pregnant and had been "sexually assaulted" by an unidentified person about nine months ago.
In a landmark verdict, the Supreme Court on Monday held that watching and downloading child pornography are offences under the POCSO Act and the information technology law.
The accused boy and the 9-year-girl, who allegedly abetted the crime, have been detained and sent to a juvenile remand home.
Though the incident occurred on July 3 evening, it came to the fore after the victim filed a complaint at Jajpur town police station on Monday, the police said.
Two teenage male friends, one of them a minor, have allegedly been stripped and forced to indulge in unnatural sex by some persons over non-payment of money in Mumbai, police said on Tuesday.
The commission, in its report submitted to the law ministry, said the amendments are necessary as such cases do not merit to be dealt with the same severity as the cases that were ideally imagined to fall under the POCSO Act.
A businessman in Kerala has released CCTV footage allegedly showing police officers assaulting restaurant employees in custody. The businessman claims the incident occurred in May 2023 and that his attempts to seek justice have been met with resistance.
Police sources said the girl's mother had, in the past, lodged over 50 complaints against various people including the then Bengaluru Police Commissioner Alok Kumar, and his staff, for allegedly manhandling her and abusing her.
IPL side Royal Challengers Bengaluru's under-fire pacer Yash Dayal has been accused of raping a minor in an FIR registered against him by Jaipur Police.
Any sexual act includes inappropriate touching, forcible disrobing, indecent gestures or remarks made with an intent to insult the modesty of a woman, a bench of Justice Urmila Joshi-Phalke said in the order passed on Monday.
The teenage girl was sexually assaulted and three women were robbed of gold ornaments by two motorbike-borne unidentified persons when the victims were travelling in a car in the wee hours of Monday on a highway in Daund in Pune district, a police official said.
A teacher accused of sexually assaulting a minor student claims he expressed his love for her and addressed her as his wife. She alleges the case is fabricated by the boy's mother.
The minor was rescued after the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit of Mira-Bhayander Vasai-Virar police, in a joint operation with NGOs Exodus Road India Foundation and Harmony Foundation, raided a flat in Naigaon in Vasai in Palghar on July 26, the official said.
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