Mumbai: Man sentenced to 1.5 years in jail for calling minor girl 'item': Report

A POCSO court in Mumbai convicted and sentenced a man to one and a half years of imprisonment for harassing a minor and referring to her as ‘item’. The court observed that the word ‘item’ when used to address a girl was to objectify her sexually and nothing else.

According to a report in The Times of India, the convict, a 25-year-old businessman, sexually harassed the 16-year-old girl on her way back from school by pulling her hair and saying ‘Kya item kidhar ja rahi ho?’

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The court rejected the convict’s claims that he was falsely implicated as the girl’s parents opposed her friendship with him. The court also found that the man had been following the girl with ‘sexual intent’ for over a month.

“Such offences need to be dealt with a heavy hand as a lesson needs to be meted out to such road-side romeos, in order to protect women from behaviour that is uncalled for," special judge S J Ansari said, according to the report.

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The minor deposed in court in July 2022. As the sole witness in the case, she said that she was heading to school on July 14, 2015 at around 1.30 pm when she saw the man and his friends hanging around in one of the lanes. She further added that upon her return from school at about 2.15 pm, the man came behind her and pulled her hair, passing the absurd comment. The girl pushed him and asked him not to do so, to which he replied that he could do whatever he wanted. The girl dialled 100 immediately following which the men fled from there. The girl then informed her father of the matter and an FIR was lodged subsequently.