Kannur: A fast-track special court in Thaliparamba found a retired Armyman (47) guilty of repeatedly sexually assaulting his 13-year-old daughter and sentenced him to 23 years in prison.
Judge Rajesh R found the man guilty of all seven charges pressed against him by Sreekandapuram police in November 2021, said Sherymol Jose, the special public prosecutor for sex crimes against children.

The father retired from the Army and came home in March 2021. The same month he started abusing his elder daughter, said the prosecutor. He used to make sexually coloured remarks and inappropriately touch the girl. The man threatened to kill her and her mother if she told her ordeal to anyone, according to the police complaint filed by the daughter, who was then a Class VIII student. The abuse went on for seven months till the man's wife moved to another house with her two daughters on November 2, 2021. The daughter then approached the police with her complaint.

During the trial, the retired Armyman told the court that he was not the father of the girl and sought the court's permission to conduct a DNA paternity test, said Sherymol Jose. "The court rejected the petition," she said.

The Fast Track Special Court found the man guilty of outraging the modesty of a woman (Section 354 of IPC), making sexually coloured remarks (Section 354 A (1) (iv) of IPC), criminal intimidation (Section 506 of IPC), touching with sexual intent (Section 7 of POCSO Act), aggravated and repeated sexual assault by father (Section 9 (n) and (l) of POCSO Act), and child cruelty (Section 75 of Juvenile Justice Act).

The court sentenced the man to one year under Section 506 of IPC, five years under Section 8 of the POCSO Act for bad touch and outraging the modesty of a woman, and seven years each under Section 10 of the POCSO Act for repeatedly abusing his daughter, and three years for cruelty under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act.

The sentences will run concurrently, and so he will have to serve seven years in prison.