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Arunachal: Govt school headmaster gets life term for raping Class VII student in 2018
The case came to light after a video surfaced on social media in November 2018 in which the girl disclosed the incident, prompting an FIR on November 18
Yupia: A special Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) court in Arunachal Pradesh’s Yupia has sentenced a government school headmaster to life imprisonment for raping a Class 7 student in 2018.
Special judge (POCSO) Hirendra Kashyap convicted Biri Tapa, the then headmaster of a Government Middle School in Itanagar’s Niti Vihar, and concluded that the prosecution had proved the charges beyond reasonable doubt. The survivor was 15 years old at the time of the assault.
The case came to light after a video surfaced on social media in November 2018 in which the girl disclosed the incident, prompting an FIR on November 18.
According to the prosecution, led by special public prosecutor Kagam Bagra, the accused took the minor from the school gate on June 6, 2018, to a guest house at Bank Tinali and raped her after issuing threats.
Police seized the guest house’s records showing that a room was booked in Tapa’s name from 2 pm to 5.30 pm the same day. The survivor’s birth certificate confirmed that she was below 16 at the time of the offence.
The court rejected the defence’s claims of false implication by School Management Committee members and its assertion that the room was booked for study purposes. It also noted that a page from the teachers’ attendance register for June 2018 was missing, despite the accused being its custodian.
Invoking the presumption under Section 29 of the POCSO Act, the court held that the accused had failed to rebut the prosecution’s evidence and described the crime as a serious breach of trust.
At the sentencing hearing on November 13, the court imposed life imprisonment and a fine of ₹20,000, with a default sentence of two months’ simple imprisonment. It also directed the Papum Pare District Legal Services Authority to provide compensation to the survivor under the Arunachal Pradesh Victim Compensation Scheme.
