Ghaziabad man gets 20-year jail for raping minor

NOIDA: A Ghaziabad resident has been sentenced to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment by a POCSO court for raping a minor in 2021.
The 14-year-old girl was suffering from depression and was allegedly planning on self-harm when she met the accused on a social networking site. The convict, Nurul Hasan, then 32, had called the girl to a hotel on the pretext of help and raped her instead.
Special public prosecutor Neetu Bishnoi said the girl's mother had filed a complaint at Phase 3 police station on February 4 last year.The complaint stated, "On November 29, 2021, my daughter had gone out at 2.30pm and returned at 6.50pm. When asked, she said that a man raped her in a hotel in Noida Sector 70."
During the trial, the Class 10 student told the court that she was depressed for one year and was getting medical treatment. She also informed the court that she wanted to harm herself and had found on the internet that a heavy dose of arsenic could be fatal.
"I was searching for arsenic online and I met Nurul Hasan on a social networking site on November 27, 2021. He promised to provide arsenic and asked for my mobile number. I believed him and we fixed the date of November 29, 2021, to meet and get arsenic. The accused booked a cab for me that day. The accused called me to a hotel in Sector 70 and gave his and another girl's identity cards at the hotel reception for check-in. Later, he raped me in the hotel room," the girl told the court.
Earlier, during the probe, police had scanned the mobile numbers and found that Nurul had called the victim four times on the day of the crime and exchanged some messages on WhatsApp. Investigating officer Rekha Chaudhury said the mobile number was registered in the name of Zakir Hasan but his brother Nurul was using it.
"We also scanned the register of the hotel and found Nurul Hasan had checked in with a girl that day. The investigation further showed that a cab was booked by Nurul that day which picked up the girl from her home and dropped her off at the hotel in Sector 70," Chaudhury said, adding that the charge sheet in the case was filed against her on April 26 last year.
Nurul had pleaded not guilty to the charges. His lawyer, Harish Chandra Verma, said the man had been falsely implicated. "The minor was looking for some poisonous substance and when she did not find it, she falsely implicated Nurul," he said.
Relying on the evidence and witnesses' testimonies, special judge (POCSO Act) Anil Kumar Singh sentenced Nurul to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment and also imposed an Rs10,000 fine under IPC Section 376 (3) (rape on a woman under sixteen years of age) on Friday.
(The victim's identity has not been revealed to protect her privacy as per Supreme Court directives on cases related to sexual assault)