PESHAWAR: A child protection court has convicted a juvenile person here for sexually assaulting an eight-year-old girl and sentenced him to seven-year simple imprisonment.

It declared that the convict, after completing four years of imprisonment and in case of good conduct,would be provided with the relief of the remaining jail term’s conversion into probation under Section 15-C of the Juvenile Justice System Act, 2018 and would be placed under the care of his father on the production of a Rs50,000 surety bond.

The convict was charged in an FIR registered by a police station here on May 20, 2019, under the Pakistan Penal Code’s Section 376 (rape) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Child Protection and Welfare Act’s sections 50 (exposing to seduction) and 53 (sexual abuse).

His transfer to rehabilitation centre also ordered

Complainant in the case was the girl’s paternal uncle, who insisted that on the day of sexual assault, she went to the school but didn’t return and was later found unconscious in the area.

He said the girl told the family that the convict had taken her away unconscious before raping her.

The court invoked different provisions of the Juvenile Justice System Act, observing that since the purpose of the law was not punitive but reformative, the superintendent of the Central Jail Peshawar was required to send the convict to the juvenile rehabilitation centre required to be set up by the government under Section 20 of the Act.

It ordered the sending of the verdict’s copies to the provincial chief secretary and home secretary for the convict’s detention to the juvenile rehabilitation centre and declared that till the time that centre was not notified, the jail superintendent was authorised to receive the convict in juvenile barrack on the premises.

The court directed the jail superintendent to take care of the health, hygiene and all legal needs of the convict in accordance with the Juvenile Justice System Act.

It added that the jail superintendent was duty bound to furnish periodical reports as to physical, mental, psychological, intellectual, moral religious, educational and social development of the juvenile convict during period of detention along with the report on measures being taken to improve the mental caliber of the juvenile and as to development of skills for the purpose of his reintegration in the society.

Directions were also issued to the superintendent to allow the probation officer to enter the jail premises for the counselling of the convict and preparing the report.

The court ordered the production of that report after two months for its further orders.

It also declared that under the provisions of the Juvenile Justice System Act, the convicted juvenile should not suffer a disqualification, if any, attaching to the conviction of an offence under any law under Section 19 of the Act.

Under the Juvenile Justice System Act, the court stopped the publication of the proceedings of the case ‘in a manner which may disclose the name, address, school or any identification or particulars to lead directly or indirectly to the identification of the juvenile’.

Published in Dawn, March 4th, 2022