Itanagar: For Paul Chawang, a child rights activist and director of Childline Roing, August 30 was a bittersweet day. On one hand, thanks to his efforts, a rapist had been convicted, and yet, the fact that the accused, Aka Kalung, a government employee stationed in Tezu, had only got 10 years of rigorous imprisonment (RI), showed several lacunae in the justice system.
On August 30, 2022, Judge Lobsang Tenzin in the court of the special judge (POCSO) in Lohit HQ convicted Kalung under Section 376 (2) (f) IPC and Section 4 (1) of the POCSO Act, 2012, and sentenced him as per Section 42 of the POCSO Act, 2012. Kalung was also fined Rs 20,000. In default, the convict shall undergo simple imprisonment of two months.
The court also recommended payment of monetary compensation to the survivor under the Arunachal Pradesh Victim Compensation Scheme, 2011.
Speaking with EastMojo, Paul Chawang said the judgement left him with mixed feelings. Chawang, who was instrumental in bringing out this matter, was thankful that the matter had gone from FIR to sentencing in just over a year. “But I do feel that given the sickening nature of his crimes, the sentence should have been at least 25 years,” he said. That, however, proved to be difficult and as per the judgement, the prosecution failed to prove the offence under Section 376 (3) of the IPC, which took it outside the category of ‘minor’.
“One of the biggest issues we faced during the case was that we could not correctly ascertain the survivor’s age,” said Chawang, adding that there was a discrepancy of two years according to various reports. It did not help that the survivor, who is from Nepal, comes from an extremely poor background and does not have the necessary documents to prove her age. If, Chawang said, Aka Kalung had been booked under Section 376 (3) (provided her age could have been ascertained with no room for doubt), the punishment would have been 25 years and above.
The survivor, in her complaint in 2021, had issued a harrowing account of how Aka Kalung and his wife Jaya Kalung abused her over the years. The survivor, whose parents work as daily wage labourers in Nepal, had sent her to work at this family’s home as domestic help for Rs 1,500 a month.
After the rape allegations came to light, Kalung fled from Roing and in a surprising turn of events, managed to get an interim bail from the high court even before the case was registered.
Chawang points out that the case grabbed headlines when the then chief justice of the Gauhati High Court, Sudhanshu Dhulia, took suo moto cognisance after it emerged that the Tezu sessions court had granted the survivor’s custody to a relative of the rapist.
Earlier, the minor was made to record her statement alone before the magistrate, who was a friend of the accused.
In the 30 August sentence, the judge wrote “the victim stated that the learned magistrate who recorded her statement under Section 164 CrPC was a friend of the accused person and he visited the house of the accused and he knew her. This court is not casting any aspersion on the learned magistrate as he was not summoned as witness in this case. However, the record shows that the learned magistrate did not provide any support person to remain present with the victim at the time of recording her statement under Section 164 (5A) (a) CrPC, read with Section 25 of POCSO Act, 2012.”
How did the accused’s wife go scot-free?
In EastMojo’s story in March 2021 on this issue when it first came to light, we had mentioned how when Jaya Kalung, the wife of Aka Kalung, caught Aka Kalung abusing the girl, she beat up the girl. This indicated that not only was she aware of the heinous crime, but she also tried to cover up the matter. Yet, surprisingly, her name was missing from the chargesheet and at the time of filing this report, she remains scot-free. “This once again shows that the investigating team needs to be better informed about our laws. The wife was equally guilty of the crime and caused immense mental trauma to the survivor, which may take years to heal. But she was not named in this case as an accused and hence there was no action taken against her,” said Chawang.
The survivor, currently in a child care centre, has been recommended therapy but Chawang feels a lot more needs to be done. “She must be accorded with the best trauma specialists given what she has had to endure in the past few years. I request the authorities to do the same as urgently as possible,” he added.
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