An additional sessions court here has awarded rigorous imprisonment of 10 years to two persons who abused a girl with partial mental disability.
Pronouncing the order, judge Biju Menon found Krishnan, 67, and Sreedharan, 63, both residents of Nedumbassery, guilty of abusing the girl in a room near the Kerala Judicial Academy at Athani on several occasions between September and December 2016.
Fine imposed
Besides imprisonment, the court also imposed a fine of ₹50,000 on each of the convicts, for payment to the victim under the Kerala Victim Compensation Scheme 2014.. During the trial, the court cross-examined seventeen witnesses, including the victim, her guardians and the doctor who had examined the victim. To support the case, it also produced sixteen documents. The victim, then a higher secondary school student, was waiting for her bus at Athani junction when the duo forcibly took her to their room and abused her.
Her ordeal came to light when she revealed the episode to her classmates, teachers and a relative.
During the trial, the psychiatrist who had examined the girl testified before the court that the victim’s IQ level was 53 as against the average level of 110.
