A Delhi court has sentenced a septuagenarian to 10-year rigorous imprisonment for sexually assaulting a five-year-old girl, saying the nature of the offence does not merit any leniency. 

Additional Sessions Judge Seema Maini sentenced 74-year-old Vijay Kumar, a north Delhi resident, and said the mitigating factor of the convict's age "cannot obliviate the stress, pain and trauma", which the tender-aged victim and her family had undergone. 

The court also granted a compensation of Rs 1.5 lakh to the minor victim and asked the Delhi State Legal Services Authority to give it to the family of the child. "As the scars and bad memories, which have and shall continue to haunt the child and be a hurdle in her emotional and psychological growth, resorting to the provisions of POCSO Act, the victim is granted a compensation of Rs 1.5 lakh," the court said. 

According to the complaint by the child's mother, the convict, who used to live in the same building as a tenant, sexually assaulted the minor girl on March 19 last year. The convict, however, claimed he was falsely implicated in the case at the instance of the child's father as they had a previous enmity.

The court rejected Kumar's contention and said that the testimony of prosecution witnesses was found trustworthy and reliable and proved that he had committed aggravated penetrative sexual assault on the victim. 

"The only mitigating factors in favour of the convict is that he is 74 years of age, all alone in the world, his wife and children having expired, but the same cannot obliviate the stress, pain and the trauma, which the tender aged victim and her family would have undergone, and would continue to undergo till the child is able to erase the said horrific memories," the court said. —PTI