Kannur: A fast-track special court in Taliparamba sentenced a retired driver of KSRTC to 90 years in prison for sexually assaulting a 17-year-old boy with intellectual disabilities for three years.
Judge Rajesh R found Bhaskaran C (65) of Pariyaram guilty of five counts of sexual assault and fined him Rs 1.25 lakh on Tuesday.
Sherymol Jose, the special public prosecutor for sex crimes against children, said Bhaskaran abused the boy from April 2017 to September 2020.
Two more persons, also in their 60s, had allegedly sexually assaulted the boy, she said. One of them died of cancer. The second person was acquitted after the boy turned hostile under "circumstantial pressure".
Bhaskaran's counsel produced the second person as a witness to break the prosecution case. "We exposed him in the court and the judge convicted Baskaran despite his statement," said Sherymol Jose.
Bhaskaran's wife also tried to pressurise the survivor boy by threatening to end her life if he did not withdraw the complaint, said the prosecutor. "The boy's parents are cleaning staffers in an institute. But they and their son withstood immense pressure and went ahead with this case," she said.
The prosecution had charged Bhaskaran with Section 3 (c) and (d), Section 5 (k) and (l) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, and Section 377 of the IPC. "They sentenced him to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment under each of the four charges under the POCSO Act and 10 years under Section 377 of the IPC," she said.
The sentences would run concurrently and so Bhaskaran would have to serve only 20 years in prison, she said.
