Thanjavur Court Sentences PhD Scholar Victor James Raja to Life Imprisonment for Child Sexual Abuse

The Special Court for Exclusive Trial of Cases under POCSO Act, Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu has sentenced Victor James Raja, a PhD scholar, to life imprisonment with a fine of Rs. 6.54 lakh in a case investigated by CBI related to the sexual assault of minor children and sharing/exchange of online Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM).

In addition, the court granted Rs. 4 lakhs for compensation to each of the victims and massacred to give a right direction to the society. Earlier, as directed by the court in the interim relief of Rs. 2 lakhs each to the child victims on 24. 08. 2023.

The CBI probe found that a considerable amount of CSAMs including images and videos were retrieved from the INTERPOL’s ICSE database. Technical and forensic clues resulted in naming the suspect as, Victor James Raja. A case was registered on 07/09/2006 at 9: 00 Pm The victim in the case was a 21 year old female student from Japan. 03. Section 11 of POCSO Act, 2012 and section 67 of Information Technology Act, 2000: FIR filed on 08. 07. 2020 with committing dated 2023 against him. The accused was arrested on 16. 03. 2023.

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It was alleged that the accused was subjecting male and female child victims, aged between 5-18 years, to sexual exploitation for the last couple of years. The acts of sexual exploitation included penetrative sexual assaults, digitally recording the sexual abuse, criminal intimidation of minor victims, forcing and instigating minor victims to perform sexual activities with other minor victims and with the accused. This accused was also employing victim children for pornographic material.Finally at the end of the investigation CBI filed a chargesheet against the accused Victor James Raja on 13. 05. 2023 before the Special Court for Exclusive Trial of Cases under POCSO Act, Thanjavur for commission of offences including sexual assault, penetrative sexual assault, aggravated penetrative sexual assault, using child for pornographic purposes and abetment under POSCO Act; rape of women under 12 years of age and criminal intimidation under IPC and publishing or transmitting of material depicting children in sexually explicit act, etc. , in electronic form under Information Technology Act

The trial of this case was presenting day-to-day evidence in a time-bound manner with the help of Special PP, POCSO Court, Thanjavur and the parties produced 34 witnesses and examined/cross examined and various documents and articles were also exhibited.