In Uttarakhand, the child sexual abuse law is being used to settle scores

In May 2021, a Nainital teenager’s neighbour filed a police complaint against him.

Ramnaresh Kashyap alleged that 18-year-old Pradeep Singh had taken his daughter away and had sexually assaulted her.

According to Kashyap, his daughter, Jaya, had left home on April 30, 2021, to attend the wedding of a relative. When she did not return, he suspected that she had been misled by Singh, who had taken her to his ancestral home in Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh. Jaya was five days shy of 18.

Investigating the complaint, the police claimed to have found Jaya at Singh’s home in Moradabad. They arrested him under provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.

Singh spent seven months in Uttarakhand’s Halwani jail.

But the case collapsed swiftly during trial.

Kashyap and his daughter denied everything. The father said that the complaint had been written by people of his village. Since he could not read, he did not know what it said and had simply signed it.

Jaya, on the other hand, claimed that she had not met Singh during her relative’s wedding and did not elope with him. The police had not found the two in Moradabad because they had never gone there, and Singh did not sexually assault her.

In December 2023, Singh was acquitted by a...

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