Difficult to believe 71-year-old with eye surgeries, rods in legs climbed 5 floors to wink at 9-year-old, says Mumbai court; acquits him in POCSO case

MUMBAI: Observing that it is difficult to believe that a 71-year-old man could wink when he had two eye surgeries and make sexual gestures while struggling to climb five flights of stairs due to rods in his legs, a special POCSO court last week acquitted him of charges of sexual abuse and harassing his nine-year-old neighbour in 2018.The building has no lift. "With rods in his legs, the man used to climb the five-floor building with difficulty. He underwent eye surgery twice. When it is so, it is difficult to believe that he was winking and making sexual gestures while climbing the stairs to a nine-year-old girl, who was of the age of his granddaughter. It is possibly a wrong perception of the girl, rather than the reality," special judge Satyanarayan R Navander said.

The accused, who is now aged 78, was out on bail.The judge also found it suspicious that no other residents of the building had witnessed the alleged stalking or misbehaviour during the nine-month period. "The accused must have uttered some words addressing the girl, indicating his intention. However, the prosecution has no such details. The evidence of conduct and behaviour of the accused from the building residents should have been secured by the investigating officer.

Even the girl's mother does not say that she saw the accused misbehaving with her daughter at any point in time," the judge said.

The case stemmed from an FIR registered on Sept 7, 2018. The nine-year-old girl complained that on Jan 16, 2018, she went to her neighbour's house for his granddaughter's birthday. On the pretext of feeding her cake, she claimed he touched her inappropriately, a detail she added during her court testimony; it was not in her initial police statement.

The girl also alleged that the accused would wink at her and make indecent gestures, particularly when he met her on the staircase and when she would go to his house.

On Sept 3, 2018, at 6pm, when the girl was sweeping the floor outside her flat door, the accused allegedly winked at her. She started crying and narrated the incident to her parents. Her father confronted the neighbour, but he denied the allegations. The girl's mother then filed a police complaint.However, the judge noted several inconsistencies in the prosecution's case. The girl claimed that her friend and father were present at the birthday party on Jan 16, 2018, but neither was called as a witness. "...It is found unsafe to rely upon the evidence of the sole witness, the girl," the judge said, adding that there was also a nine-month delay between the alleged incident and filing of complaint. The judge further said that the evidence of the prosecution comes under a cloud of doubt in respect of outraging of modesty, sexual assault, and stalking of the girl by the accused, "particularly in the background of his medical condition".