Thane: School van driver gets 10 years RI for raping two girls

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A special court has sentenced 10 years of rigorous imprisonment to a 35-year-old van driver for raping two girls. He used to drop the girls at a local school in Bhiwandi. Tulshiram Manere was convicted and awarded the sentence to him by Special POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act) court judge S P Gondhalekar on Friday. The court also imposed a penalty of Rs 28,000 on him.

According to the prosecution, the convict, who used to ferry schoolchildren in a van daily, had raped the two eight-year-old girls, on multiple occasions between June and December 2016. "On Saturdays, the school timing of these two girls used to be different. Taking advantage of the situation, he would take the victims to an isolated place and molest and rape them. This happened on multiple occasions between June and December 2016," said additional public prosecutor Ujjwala Moholkar.

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She further told the court that he had applied sun films on the windows of his vehicle in order to hide his crime and threatened the girls with dire consequences if they told about his acts to anyone. "As the girls were under pressure, they did not talk about it to anyone. However, due to the sexual harassment faced, they stopped attending schools on Saturdays. When the teachers once asked them the reason behind their not attending the school on Saturdays, they broke down and narrated their ordeal to her," the prosecutor told the court.

The teacher reportedly took the victims to Nizampura police station and filed a complaint against Manere, after which he was arrested. He was held guilty under IPC sections 376 (rape), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty) and 506 (criminal intimidation) and under provisions of the POCSO Act.

Also Read: Mumbai Crime: Vasai man gets life for rape of a minor girl

With inputs from PTI

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