A court in Mangaluru has sentenced a 44-year-old man, Dayanand Moolya, to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment for the sexual assault of a seven-year-old girl in November 2025. The Additional District and Sessions Judge of the Fast Track Special Court-II (POCSO), Maanu KS, delivered the verdict under POCSO Section 6, read alongside Section 65(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) Act and POCSO Section 4(2).
In addition to the primary sentence, the court imposed separate punishments for unlawful trespass and death threats, and ordered that the survivor receive a total compensation of Rs 4 lakh. The case moved from complaint to conviction within months a relatively swift outcome in a justice system where such cases can languish for years. No statements from the defence or the convict have been reported.
Swift Justice for a Child Terrorised Into Silence
According to Special Public Prosecutor Sahana Devi Boloor, the assault took place on 16 November 2025, at around 2 pm, on what should have been an ordinary afternoon. The seven-year-old was studying alone at home in Mulki when the accused, Dayanand Moolya, a 44-year-old resident of the area, illegally entered the house.
He sexually assaulted the child and, in an act that compounded the cruelty of his crime, threatened to kill her and throw her into a well if she told anyone what had happened. The threat was calculated to silence a child who was too young to fully comprehend what had been done to her, yet old enough to be gripped by fear.
Despite the terror she had been subjected to, the girl eventually found the courage to tell her mother. The mother, upon learning what had happened, wasted little time she walked into the Mulki Police Station on 22 November 2025 and filed a formal complaint. Police Inspector Manjunath BS took charge of the investigation, meticulously gathered evidence, and submitted the chargesheet to the court in due course.
The sentencing reflects the gravity with which the court viewed the offences. For the sexual assault, under POCSO Section 6 along with BNS Act Section 65(2) and POCSO Section 4(2), Moolya was sentenced to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment and fined Rs 30,000.
For illegally entering the house, under BNS Section 332(B), he received three years of simple imprisonment and a fine of Rs 5,000. For issuing death threats to the child, under BNS Section 351(3), he was sentenced to two further years of simple imprisonment and a fine of Rs 5,000.
The court directed that the survivor receive a total compensation of Rs 4 lakh with Rs 40,000 drawn from the fine amount and the remaining Rs 3.6 lakh to be disbursed through the District Legal Services Authority, an acknowledgement that the trauma inflicted on this child and her family carries consequences far beyond the courtroom.
System Under Strain, Case Cuts
India’s Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, enacted in 2012 and significantly strengthened through a 2019 amendment that introduced the death penalty for the most aggravated offences, was designed to serve as a robust legal shield for the country’s children.
Central to its implementation is the network of Fast Track Special Courts (FTSCs), set up specifically to ensure timely disposal of rape and child sexual abuse cases, sparing survivors the ordeal of prolonged legal battles.
As of October 2024, 863 fast track courts were operational across India, a significant expansion from the original scheme. Yet for all this infrastructure, the system continues to face daunting structural challenges.
On average, Fast Track Special Courts take nearly 510 days to dispose of a POCSO case far exceeding the one-year timeline the Act itself mandates. The conviction rate in POCSO cases has declined by six percentage points, from 35% in 2019 to 29% in 2023, even as courts have begun clearing more cases than are being registered each year.
In 2025, a total of 80,320 POCSO cases were registered across India, while 87,754 were disposed of a sign that the justice system is beginning to make inroads into a formidable backlog. However, nearly half of all pending cases nationally have remained unresolved for more than two years, meaning thousands of child survivors and their families continue to wait in a state of painful uncertainty.
Experts have also flagged deeper, systemic concerns. Many judicial officers handling Fast Track Special Courts are given additional charge alongside their regular district court duties, rather than being appointed exclusively to POCSO cases undermining the very purpose for which these courts were created.
Court infrastructure remains inadequate in many parts of the country, with survivors often having to wait in open corridors without dedicated safe spaces, and a lack of specialised training for judges on handling the testimony of traumatised child witnesses.
Researchers and advocates have called for setting up an additional 600 exclusive POCSO courts at an estimated cost of Rs 1,977 crore, suggesting the use of the Nirbhaya Fund to finance the expansion a proposal that reflects both the scale of the problem and the resources required to meaningfully address it.
Against this national backdrop of structural strain, the Mangaluru verdict stands out. The assault occurred in November 2025; a complaint was filed within days; the police completed their investigation and filed a chargesheet; and the court delivered its verdict with sentences across multiple charges.
That this was possible is owed in no small part to a mother who chose to act, a police officer who investigated diligently, a public prosecutor who argued effectively, and above all, a seven-year-old girl who despite being threatened with death chose to speak.
The Logical Indian’s Perspective
Cases such as this one are a devastating reminder that children in India are not safe even within the walls of their own homes. The image of a seven-year-old studying alone, only to have a known adult violate her sanctuary and then weaponise her fear against her, is one that should disturb every one of us not merely as a news item to be read and forgotten, but as a reflection of the society we are collectively responsible for shaping.
The courage this child demonstrated in telling her mother, despite having been threatened with death, is extraordinary. It is also a reminder of how fragile that moment of disclosure is, and how easily it can be extinguished by fear, by shame, by disbelief, or by a community that looks the other way. When children speak, they must be met with unwavering belief and support. The grief of a parent in that moment is unimaginable; the instinct to protect is primal. That this mother acted swiftly and without hesitation, going to the police within days, is something that deserves recognition alongside the court’s verdict.
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