A special court hearing Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses (POCSO) Act cases in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly on Monday convicted a transgender man of raping a seven-year-old girl in 2022 and sentenced the person to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment.
Additional District and Sessions Judge Umashankar Kahar also imposed a fine of Rs 12,000 on the guilty 23-year-old Fareen Ahmed and said that if the accused does not pay the amount, he will be imprisoned for one more year.
Ahmed was convicted under Section 6 of the POCSO Act, which deals with the punishment of aggravated intrusive sexual assault.
On March 27, 2022, the girl’s mother lodged a First Information Report (FIR) at the jurisdictional police station alleging that Ahmed had raped the girl by forcing her to go together to his house to watch television. “He raped her at home and threatened to kill her if she told anyone about the incident. My daughter came home in critical condition and bleeding. She was admitted to a local hospital for two weeks,” the woman said in the FIR.
Police arrested Ahmed on March 28, 2022 after medical examination confirmed that the girl had been raped.
After Ahmed’s lawyer claimed that he was born female, the court directed the Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences in Lucknow to conduct a gender determination test. The institute submitted a report to the court on September 24 this year that Ahmed’s sperm contained X and Y chromosomes, confirming that the accused was male.
Bareilly Senior Superintendent of Police Anurag Arya said that the case was taken up under ‘Operation Conviction’. Manush Pareek, Additional Superintendent of Police, Bareilly, was the nodal officer and the case was heard on fast track basis, Arya added.