New Delhi: A court here has acquitted a man who allegedly raped a 15-year-old girl after forcibly marrying her, noting that the girl who came up with contradictory versions about the incident had eloped with him willfully.

"The circumstances indicate that she (prosecutrix) had sex with the accused (Mohd Muslim) in the capacity of his wedded wife, a situation which nowhere make that act penal," Additional Sessions Judge R K Yadav said in a recent order.

Absolving Muslim of offences punishable under Section 366 (kidnapping) and 376 (rape) of the IPC, the court said the girl, who had married the accused in the presence of a Maulvi and two other witnesses, had her consent to the whole incident. It also exonerated Iqbal, an accomplice of Muslim, after the girl had also charged him of kidnapping her.

The court also took an adverse note of contradictions in the statements made by her initially before the police and later during her deposition before the court. In her statement before the police she had stated that she was kidnapped by the accused and not physically abused, but before the court she also charged Mohd Muslim of raping her.

"It is evident that the victim had been changing her version for ulterior. The facts make it clear that the victim was not at all a reliable witness," the order said. According to the prosecution, the victim, a resident of Seelampur in east Delhi, was taken away from her parents custody to an isolated location.

It was alleged that during her five days of stay there, Muslim had forcibly married her in the presence of a priest.

Source : PTI