The Meghalaya High Court has today rejected the appeal by a man who raped and impregnated his step-daughter.
Donboklang Ryntathiang, a resident of Mawbri village near Riangdo in West Khasi Hills, has appealed in the High Court against his earlier conviction by the trial court under Section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 and jail sentence of 20 years.
“The judgment of conviction and the sentence pronounced on October 21, 2020 do not call for any interference. There is no merit in the appeal and as it has been established beyond reasonable doubt that it was the appellant herein who had raped his step-daughter on several occasions and caused her the misery of going through a pregnancy that she did not realise and a premature child birth, apart from the trauma that may haunt her for the rest of her life. The mental agony and the pain will be difficult for the victim to get over and the appellant will have enough time to reflect in solitude as to what drove him to commit the offence,” Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Wanlura Diengdoh said in an order today.
The victim in this case was about 13 years old at the time that the initial act of sexual assault was alleged to have been committed by Ryntathiang. The victim complained that the initial rape had taken place in January 2013 and it was repeated at least three times shortly thereafter.
The matter came to light only after September 17, 2013, at a time when the victim was working as a maid in Nongstoin, when she experienced unbearable abdominal pain, was taken to a medical facility and gave premature birth to a girl child. Since it was a premature delivery, the child survived barely over a week.
The victim told her mother that it was her step-father who was the father of her baby daughter and that her step-father had raped her on several occasions.
The first information report was lodged on September 24, 2013 by the uncle of the victim. However, because of the tardy investigation that we are accustomed to in this country, poor samples drawn led to an inconclusive DNA report.
After the complaint was lodged to the police, few village meetings were held in the presence of the elders of the two clans. In the course of such meetings, the mother of the victim announced her decision to separate from her husband.
Immediately after one of the clan meetings was over, Ryntathiang confessed to having raped his step-daughter on several occasions.
