Berhampur: A court in Odisha Monday sentenced a 29-year-old man to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment for raping a minor girl two years ago.
Pranati Pattnaik, the additional district judge-cum-judge of the special POCSO court in Ganjam, also imposed a penalty of Rs 12,000 on the convict.
The court directed the district legal service authorities to pay Rs 5 lakh to the victim under a state government compensation scheme, said special public prosecutor Narayan Panda.
It pronounced the judgment after recording the statements of 14 witnesses, he said
The incident took place at a village in Ganjam district’s Khallikote area May 15, 2022, when the man forcibly entered the victim’s home when she was alone while her parents had gone to attend a festival.
PTI