Bhubaneswar: A court in Odisha’s Sundargarh district today sentenced a youth to 20 years of imprisonment for raping a minor girl in 2022.

The Special POCSO court in Sundargarh also slapped a penalty of Rs 50,000 on convict Laba Khadia (22) of Hemgir area.

Non-payment of the penalty amount would invite further imprisonment for one year, said the court.

As per the case records, the incident took place while the six-year-old girl was on her way to a nearby shop to buy an ice-cream on March 17, 2022.

Khadia allegedly forcibly took the minor girl to a secluded place and raped her. The survivor informed the incident to her parents the next day.

The Hemgiri police in Sundargarh registered a case and arrested the accused on the basis of a complaint lodged by the survivor’s family.

The POCSO court convicted the accused after examining the witnesses and other evidence gathered by the police, said Special Public Prosecutor Pravat Kumar Nanda.