Cuttack, Jan 30: It’s a clear case of police ham-handedness and insensitivity. Has POCSO been misused?  Or is it one of shoddy reporting?

The PTI reports:  A minor girl was allegedly raped by a boy who befriended her on Facebook, police said.

The girl, a native of Jaipur, was in touch with the minor boy through social media for the last six months. The accused asked her to come to the city and she arrived here on January 26, police said.

“The boy took her to a rented house in Badambadi area. They stayed there for three days. But the boy went missing on January 29,” an FIR registered on the basis of a complaint filed by NGO Childline that traced the boy said.

The boy has been arrested on charges of “sexual assault under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offence Act”.

Now if both were legally minors, they both stayed together at a rented house for 3 days, it is most likely that whatever happened between them was with mutual consent. Of course, we do not know whether the girl actually complained of ape or whether the case was deemed ‘statutory rape’.

This is probably a case of Facebook romance going sour, unfortunately involving two ‘underage’ persons (In all probability between 15 -17 years), but for the media and the police ‘everybody loves a good rape’ it seems.

The reporter, by leaving out the really relevant details, has only sought for sensation.

  crime, POCSO