Mumbai, February 24 A special court under the POCSO Act here has acquitted four men accused of gang-raping a mentally disabled girl, citing a lack of reliable evidence.
Additional Sessions Judge Ashwini D Lokhande, in the verdict delivered on February 5, ordered the immediate release of the accused, who had been in prison since August 2019.
A copy of the order became available this week.
The prosecution's case was based on unreliable evidence and failed to establish a connection between the accused and the crime, the special Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act court said.
Furthermore, no common intention among the accused to commit the act was proven, it said.
"The prosecution miserably failed to establish the guilt of the accused beyond any doubt," the judge said, adding that a conviction cannot be based solely on suspicion.
According to the complainant, the victim's sister, her mentally disabled sister, who was then a minor, was lured away to a jungle in the Sakinaka area by four men on August 20, 2019, and was raped.
However, when the trial began, the victim could not be examined in court as she was said to have gone missing from Bihar in 2024.
The court noted that she had recorded her statement before a magistrate, but the police failed to do so with the help of a special educator or interpreter, despite knowing that she had a moderate intellectual disability with an IQ of 36.
