house. Unmindful of what could be the motive of an uncle to call her, she obliged as a dutiful child. However, according to the prosecution, unfortunate incident happened. It happened with a nine year old child who was totally unaware of the catastrophe which had befallen her. Her mental faculties had not developed fully; she was in the age of innocence; unaware of the dreadful consequences. Further, at the time when she was being sexually assaulted, her mouth was gagged so that she was not able to scream and after the incident she was threatened not to disclose this incident to anybody. In fact, she kept mum out of this fear. It is quite understandable that a nine year old child, after undergoing traumatic experience and inflicted with threats, would be frozen with fear and she could not find voice to speak against her uncle. In cases of incestuous abuse, more often, silence is built into the abuse. Incident came to light and tragedy struck on the prosecutrix only when her mother noticed that she was continuously suffering from stomach ache and was, therefore, taken to a Gynecologist for her treatment. But for the above, matter may not have come to light. It is only after she was examined by Dr. Jasbir Kaur (PW-8), who had medically examined and formed the opinion that the prosecutrix had been sexually assaulted forcibly about 2-3 years ago, since her hymen was ruptured and her external and internal sphincters were also torn, that PW-1 queried the prosecutrix and she revealed the incident, hitherto hidden by her from the entire world out of fear, not only as a result of the threats extended by the Respondent but for varied other reasons.
