Palghar, May 11 (PTI) A court at Vasai here in Maharashtra has sentenced a man to life imprisonment for raping an eight-year-old girl in 2017.

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Special (POCSO) court judge Aditee U Kadam in her order on Tuesday also slapped a fine of Rs 10,000 on the accused- Jagdish Fagu Rai.

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The judge noted that the prosecution has proved the charges against the accused under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

Special Public Prosecutor Jaiprakash Patil told the court that the victim and her parents used to move from place to place for begging.

On the intervening night of May 26-27, 2017, while they were sleeping near the Gamdevi temple in Sativali area of Palghar, the girl went to answer nature's call.

The accused, who was present there, took her to an isolated placed and raped her. When she raised an alarm, he dragged her further near a tree and again raped her, the prosecution told the court.

Her parents later searched for her and found her in the custody of the accused and bleeding.

They later filed a police complaint and the accused was arrested.

The deposition of the prosecution witnesses, including the victim and her parents, helped in nailing the accused, the prosecutor said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)