New Delhi: “The trust bestowed upon such babas and soothsayers is often betrayed in the name of blind faith”, a court observed while sentencing a man to imprisonment for the remainder of his life for sexually assaulting an eight-year-old girl under the guise of performing a spiritual ritual to cure her medical condition.
Additional sessions judge Vaibhav Mehta said such acts questioned “the very existence of humanity”, highlighting how self-proclaimed healers gain unchecked access to people’s homes and private lives. Pointing to the “deeper malaise in the society which in a way contributed to the offence”, the court said the blind trust bestowed upon such people is often betrayed in such ways by them, “calling into question the very existence of humanity and the depraved society we are living in”. It observed that “he knew what was to be done to avoid any evidence linking to the offence, which leads this court to believe this might not be” the first such assault by him. The court held that the child’s testimony, corroborated by other prosecution witnesses, was “unimpeachable and beyond reproach”.
Lamenting the superstitions that give them unchecked power, the court observed, “Bestowing blind trust even in official authority can be detrimental, that is why there is a system of checks and balances, but these unofficial seers/babas get unconditional access to many people’s homes and private lives and they are not even questioned by the gullible public. The court noted that after the assault, Vakho instructed the mother to wash the child’s clothes immediately and made the girl bathe in cold water.
Vakho was sentenced to imprisonment for the rest of his life for aggravated penetrative sexual assault under Section 6 of Pocso Act and seven years for aggravated sexual assault under Section 10. The court also directed payment of Rs 15 lakh as compensation to the survivor.
“Reposing one’s faith in a person/ authority is not detrimental in itself but doing so blindly and without checks and balances surely is allowing someone unquestioned access to one’s private lives”, he noted. The judge also observed that poor people unable to afford expensive hospital care often turn to faith healers to relieve their misery.