Hyderabad: As the victim of the rape case that took place in Hyderabad’s Jubilee Hills is a 17-year-old girl, all the six accused of the case are facing charges under POCSO Act.
While five of the accused are facing rape charges whereas, one minor is accused of molesting the victim. They are booked under different sections of POCSO Act apart from relevant sections of IPC.
What is POCSO Act?
The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act was enacted in 2012 to protect the children aged below 18 years from various sexual offences.
Under the act, any person aged below 18 years irrespective of the gender is a child. The act broadly classified sexual offenses against the child into five.
- Penetrative sexual assault
- Aggregative penetrative sexual assault
- Sexual assault
- Aggregative sexual assault
- Sexual harassment
The minimum punishment for penetrative sexual assault under POCSO Act is 10 years in jail if the offense is committed against the girl aged between 16-18 years.
In case of aggregative penetrative sexual assault, the minimum punishment under the act is 20 years.
As per the act, person who commits sexual assault on a child is punished with an imprisonment of not less than three years whereas, the minimum punishment for the accused of aggregative sexual assault is five years.
In case of sexual harassment, the accused is sent jail for a term which may extend to three years.
The sections of the act also apply to accused who uses child for the pornographic purpose.
Apart from specifying the offenses, the act also gave detailed procedure for reported of case, recording statement of the child, special courts, etc.
