A 7-year-old boy from Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh allegedly raped a 5-and-a-half-year-old lady. The accused boy was produced earlier than the Juvenile Justice (JJ) Board on Tuesday.

The accused boy has been booked below part 376 (rape) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. 

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But, ought to a 7-year-old little one be tried and punished below POCSO Act? A day after the crime, India Times communicate to a gaggle of individuals to study what they give it some thought.

34-year-old lawyer and father to a 10-year-old son, Rishabh Goenka stated, “It is shocking beyond belief. The boy needs psychological help. As kids, they do what they see around them. Now, the thing is, he might have seen a movie or a song depicting sexual intimacy. It is also possible that he saw something other than this which he shouldn’t have, knowingly or unknowingly.”

Making it clear that the boy have to be tried below POCSO, he added, “At the end of the day, a crime is a crime. Kids learn from the society and do what their minds deem as acceptable to elders. So, an action should have a reaction if we want to live in a society that is responsible.” 

Nandita, a 30-year-old media skilled who has a 3-year-old niece stated, “If the boy gets away with it now, he will think he can get away with it in future as well. So, this should be stopped.”

“Compare it with other times our children do something wrong. If they pick up a habit of shoplifting or bullying others, as parents we tend to counsel them and at times, punish them too. They boy should be punished for what he did.”

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Abhay (title modified), a 26-year-old documentary filmmaker stated, “The young age of the boy makes one wonder what could have made him do such an act and warrants serious psychological examination.”

Abhay stated, “In similar cases in the US, the juvenile perpetrators were found to be victims of abuse themselves, which led to their unnatural behaviour.”

“For a young boy who hasn’t even reached the age of puberty to be aware of sexual acts, he committed such a heinous crime. It is making me think what was going on in the boy’s mind. We must seriously investigate the story to understand what led to the boy committing this act,” he stated.

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Differing with the favored opinion, a 38-year-old housemaker and mom to 2 younger women Sarita Wadhwa stated, “Most of the time kids should not conscious of their actions. They should not mature sufficient to know what they’re doing. Sending a boy of that age to a juvenile residence would imply abandoning him from the society. And the situation of juvenile properties in our nation may be very well-known.

He would develop as much as assume what did he do to deserve that. There is a large threat of him rising as much as be a legal. I imagine he ought to be correctly counselled, educated about proper and flawed and never left to rot in a remand home.”

It is important to note while the boy has been booked under IPC and POCSO Act, he is entitled to partial immunity under section 83 of the IPC. The said section reads, “Nothing is an offence which is completed by a baby above seven years of age and below twelve, who has not attained adequate maturity of understanding to guage of the character and penalties of his conduct on that event.”