In a trial that concluded in less than three months, a magistrate court has sentenced a 25-year-old man to a year of rigorous imprisonment for forcibly trying to kiss a 19-year-old student on the platform of Khar railway station in June last year.
Accused held by police and booked under section 354 of IPC
The incident took place around 1 pm on June 9 last year, when the victim was commuting from Vile Parle to Bandra to her college. By mistake, she alighted at Khar railway station. She was waiting for another train while speaking over the phone, when a man who came from behind her, tried to kiss her. She shouted in alarm. Fellow commuters caught and started beating him. Police arrived at the spot and they were taken to Bandra police station for her to lodge a complaint. The man was booked under Sec 354 of the Indian Penal Code (assault of criminal force on woman with intent to outrage modesty).
Metropolitan Magistrate BK Gawande said in its judgment that the evidence of the informant clearly established that criminal force was used upon her by the accused with an intention and knowledge that by doing such an act, modesty of the informant would certainly be outraged.
