15 men sentenced to 20 years in prison for raping their two underage sisters in Tennessee | News from Chennai

VILLUPURAM: A court in Villupuram on Tuesday found 15 men guilty of repeatedly raping two sisters aged nine and seven and sentenced them each to 20 years in prison.

M Vinodha, judge hearing cases under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (Pocso), 2012, also imposed a fine of $32,000 on each of the convicted men.

According to the prosecution, a 33-year-old woman, who was separated from her husband, left her two daughters in the care of their mother, a widow, in a village in Villupuram district after she married a man and settled in Puducherry over seven years ago.

The children, ages nine and seven (when the complaint was filed in 2019), attended a public school.

Relatives and neighbors of the children took advantage of the situation and began to sexually exploit the underage girls. They raped them both several times.

The younger sibling died in 2020 after complaining of persistent and severe abdominal pain following the sexual assault.

Repeated rapes came to light after clinical examination of girls
The girls were defenseless and their grandmother was unaware of the cruelty that was being meted out to them. The problem came to light when the two girls fell ill and were taken by their mother to the Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (Jipmer) for treatment.

After clinical examinations, doctors confirmed that the girls had been repeatedly raped. The shocked mother filed a complaint with the Brammadesam police, who then identified and arrested 15 men.

After each of the two girls was identified, they were booked for offences under Sections 376 (2) and 376 (AB) of the IPC.

The police also filed charges against them under sections 5 (aggravated sexual assault with penetration), 5(l) (multiple or repeated sexual assault with penetration on child), 5(m) (sexual assault with penetration on child below 12 years of age), 5(n) (a relative of the child by blood or by adoption or by marriage or a person in foster care or in a domestic relationship with a parent of the child or living in the same or joint household with the child commits sexual assault with penetration on that child) and 6 (punishment for aggravated sexual assault with penetration) of the Pocso Act and arrested all the 15 accused.

The woman moved to Chennai after all the accused were released on bail within months of their arrest as she feared that they would threaten her and her daughters to make her withdraw the complaint.