Youth acquitted of rape charges as court finds girl unreliable

NEW DELHI: Refusing to rely on the testimony of a girl who had accused a 23-year-old youth of kidnapping and raping her last year, a court here has acquitted him as it noted that the girl was a major and had eloped with him voluntarily.
    
"All the facts and circumstances create a serious doubt in the prosecution's version that the accused had sexual intercourse against her will," Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Kumar said in a recent order.
    
The court exonerated Lal Bahadur, a native of Uttar Pradesh, observing the 'unequivocal' fact that the girl had eloped with him was a circumstance which indicated that the physical relation was established 'with her consent'.
    
While dismissing the prosecution's claim, it said that the girl, though having ample opportunity to raise an alarm against the alleged act, never complained to anyone even when she stayed for over three days with the accused and was taken to his parental village in UP.
    
The girl's father, a resident of Vasant Vihar here, had lodged a missing report with the police on December 26, last year, and raised suspicion over Bahadur for his involvement in the act.
    
The police recovered the girl a week later and the girl had deposed against the accused charging him with kidnapping and rape but the court found during the trial that the girl was a major and had run away from her home volutarily.