Mumbai: A court in Mumbai on Thursday made a very important statement in a case related to domestic sexual violence. The court said no one should assume that a victim of sexual assault at home cannot perform well in the examination. Nor should it be assumed that her behaviour cannot be normal. The court made the remark while holding a man guilty of raping his minor daughter for several years. Special Judge Jayashree R Pulute of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act court in Mumbai had on September 29 sentenced the convict to 10 years in jail. A detailed copy of the order was made available on Wednesday.  

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According to the prosecution, the convict worked on a ship in Saudi Arabia and visited his family in Mumbai every two months. The criminal's wife noticed in 2014 that whenever he was at home, her daughter used to avoid him. She was always in her room. The girl eventually told her mother that he had sexually assaulted her several times in the last seven years. The girl said she had been facing this nightmare since she was 10. After hearing about the girl's ordeal, her mother approached the police. Subsequently, the police registered a case and took further action.  

When the matter went to court, the offender claimed why there was so much delay in making the complaint. The case is false. However, while holding the man guilty, the court rejected this argument saying that the girl was very young when the vitriol started and initially did not understand what was happening. When she attended a sex education class in Class 9, she understood that she herself was facing sexual abuse. Yet it was natural for the family to be concerned about the loss of financial aid when her father went to jail, the judge said. Due to this, the girl had said that she scored an average of 70 per cent marks in class 9th and used to go to school regularly. She had said that the presence of the offender in the house did not affect her school attendance. She had also said that the criminal regularly brought new clothes and toys for her and her siblings. The defence argued that these facts did not match the allegations of sexual abuse. But the court said that the response of every victim of sexual assault cannot be the same. "It should not be held that a victim of sexual assault cannot secure good marks in the examination," the judge said. The court said that the fact of regular school attendance and good performance in examinations would not quash his allegations. The court, in its ruling, said that "normal" behaviour by the offender, such as bringing clothes and toys for his children, did not mean that he would never commit the heinous crime of the kind he was charged with.

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