25-year-old man sentenced to 20 years in jail for raping teen girl over a year after kidnapping her

Berhampur: A court in Odisha's Ganjam district on Thursday sentenced a 25-year-old man to 20 years in jail for raping a teenage girl over a year after kidnapping her.

Special POCSO judge Ganeshwar Pati also imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh on the convict and in case of default, he will have to be in jail for another year.

The court also directed the district legal services authority to pay Rs 4.50 lakh to the 14-year-old survivor as compensation, said special public prosecutor Mohan Singari.

The court convicted the man after recording the statements of 10 witnesses and examining the girl's medical reports, he said.

The man kidnapped the girl from her village in November 2019, and took her to Surat in Gujarat. From there, they went to Vizianagaram in Andhra Pradesh, and eventually came back to Ganjam, police said.

During this period of one year, he tortured her physically and emotionally, and raped her multiple times, they said.

She was rescued by child rights activists in November 2020, after she managed to call the child helpline number.