Father, son get 20 years in jail for raping minor in Uttarakhand's Champawat

DEHRADUN: A 64-year-old man and his 26-year-old son, both labourers in Uttarakhand's Champawat area, were sentenced to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment after a court found them guilty of repeatedly raping the man's 14-year-old daughter.

Moved by the heinousness of the crime, Champawat special sessions court judge Kahkashan Khan quoted Tehri-born Hindi poet Manglesh Dabral while issuing the sentence: "Hum insaan hain ... yeh sachchai bachi rahe!" (We are human ... may this truth prevail). The court also ordered the state to pay a compensation of Rs 4 lakh to the teenager. The girl, now 17, was 14 at the time of the crime in January 2020. She told the court, "My brother raped me six times in January. A few days later, my father, too, raped me in an inebriated condition.

My younger sister, who was only 10 then, witnessed it all." The sisters later fled home.

On February 28, 2020, two members of the child helpline received information that two young girls had been found roaming about in the roads of Tanakpur. They took them to an NGO. There, the girl narrated her ordeal.

The next day, on February 29 that year, an FIR was registered under IPC section 376 (rape) and relevant sections of the Pocso Act. The accused were arrested and sent to jail. Police filed a chargesheet within two months. The father-son duo insisted in court that they were being framed. They said the girls "fled home after stealing money, possibly instigated by someone". The court dismissed the claims and observed that the girls had been missing from home for a month but neither man went to police or tried to search for them. The girl's sister however stood by the fact that she had seen her father and brother assault her sister many times.


The doctor who examined the girl confirmed that her hymen was torn, even though sperm samples couldn't be found and forced penetration couldn't be established as the medical examination was done several days after the crime.


After examining facts and, the court noted that the prosecution was successful in establishing the fact that the girl had been raped multiple times in January 2020 by her father and brother and that she was a minor at the time of the incident.

(The victim's identity has not been revealed to protect her privacy as per Supreme Court directives on cases related to sexual assault)