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POCSO Cases in Nagpur: A Five-Year Breakdown of Crime, Delays, and Gaps in Justice

POCSO Cases in Nagpur
POCSO Cases in Nagpur

Each entry in an FIR represents a disruption in a child’s life. In Vidarbha, Nagpur’s police records from the last five years under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act form a timeline marked by hundreds of such entries.


The number of filed cases, their procedural outcomes, and the systemic bottlenecks in handling them speak to a problem that has not declined in volume and remains uneven in resolution.



Case Data and Registration Patterns in Nagpur


Nagpur’s police records show a persistent caseload under the POCSO Act. According to data accessed through Right to Information applications and local police reports, a total of 221 cases were registered under the Act between January and November 2023, while 172 cases were filed between January and August 2024.


This amounts to an average of approximately 0.66 POCSO cases per day in 2023 and 0.7 per day in 2024.

Although figures for the years 2020 to 2022 are not publicly detailed in standalone reports, periodic crime review meetings and police department briefings suggest that annual POCSO filings during those years remained within a similar range, generally between 200 and 240 cases per year, indicating a sustained rate of registration.


These consistent numbers place Nagpur among the higher-reporting urban districts in Maharashtra for crimes against children, particularly in the context of child sexual offences recorded under the POCSO framework.


This steady registration reflects both growing awareness and continuing occurrence. In a report issued in September 2024, Nagpur police stated that the city was registering an average of 28 serious criminal offences per day, which extrapolates to nearly 8,400 such incidents annually.



Within this larger crime pattern, POCSO offences accounted for approximately 2.4% of serious crimes in 2023 and 2.1% in the first eight months of 2024.

Although numerically a smaller share, the daily average of nearly one POCSO case every 36 hours illustrates the unrelenting nature of these incidents.


The frequency of filings does not point to periodic surges but to a constant background level of reported abuse, embedded in a broader structure of repeated access, unchecked environments, and deeply rooted systems of neglect.


The profile of accused persons in Nagpur also aligns with national trends. In most FIRs, the perpetrator is someone the child knows.


Between 2023 and 2025, Nagpur’s police stations logged multiple complaints where the accused included schoolteachers, neighbours, family friends, live-in partners of guardians, and in some cases, relatives.

By January 2025, Maharashtra had 41,977 pending POCSO cases, a number that included cases from Nagpur that had not yet gone to trial. The state saw 12,838 new POCSO filings in 2024 alone, while disposing of only 7,942. In Nagpur, delays are compounded by limited forensic facilities and the burden of cross-verification required for medical reports, especially when FIRs are delayed.


In most police zones in Nagpur, the filing of FIRs under POCSO follows the same process of recording the child’s statement, forwarding the child for medical examination, notifying the Child Welfare Committee, and initiating a preliminary inquiry.


However, compliance with timelines remains inconsistent. In several cases, including those of repeat offences, the gap between the alleged crime and FIR registration stretches into weeks or months, limiting access to evidence and weakening the legal process that follows.

Nagpur police faced scrutiny for handling a high-profile case in early 2025 involving a 47-year-old school psychologist, who was accused of sexually exploiting approximately 50 schoolgirls across multiple institutions over nearly 15 years.


This case surfaced only when survivors, now in their early 20s, came forward and disclosed the pattern of abuse to NGOs and later to the police.


At least three FIRs were officially registered, with more disclosures being processed through counselling teams. This case alone suggested the potential scale of unregistered abuse that has occurred across Nagpur in educational settings with little institutional oversight.



Judicial Handling and Case Progression

Judicial Handling and Case Progression in POCSO in Nagpur
Judicial Handling and Case Progression in POCSO in Nagpur

While Nagpur has been registering a consistent number of POCSO cases, its judicial infrastructure has not expanded to match the caseload.


In 2020, Maharashtra sanctioned 30 special courts under the POCSO Act, yet by 2025, only one of these courts was operational in Nagpur. This single court handles all cases in the city, despite the POCSO Act mandating completion of trials within one year.

The shortage has resulted in extended delays. State-level data reveals that the disposal rate for POCSO cases dropped from 70% in 2022 to 58% in 2023, slightly recovering to 62% in 2024. Yet, new registrations consistently outpace disposals.


This leaves judges in Nagpur trying to clear cases filed years ago, many involving minor victims who now struggle to recall details due to trauma and time-lapse.


In one case adjudicated in April 2025, a local court sentenced Sahil Nehare and Varsha Bhondave to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment for repeatedly raping a three-year-old girl in 2022. The court found that the child, who later became pregnant, had suffered abuse over several months at the hands of the accused, who were acquaintances of her guardian. Despite the severity of the case, it took nearly three years for sentencing.


The prosecution relied heavily on forensic evidence and child protection statements, with support from the local Women and Child Welfare Department. The case was prosecuted under Sections 376 and 506 of the IPC alongside POCSO provisions.



Another case concluded in 2025 involved Sagar Ramteke, a 29-year-old tenant in East Nagpur, who was convicted of molesting a three-year-old girl. He was sentenced to one year of rigorous imprisonment.


The incident occurred when the girl was left under his supervision. The defence challenged the forensic evidence, and the prosecution was criticised for weak documentation. While the sentence met the legal minimum, child rights groups raised concerns over its adequacy, particularly since it lacked any additional penalty under Section 10 of the POCSO Act.


These cases reflect a broader procedural issue. Convictions, when they occur, often depend on the availability of medical evidence and prompt reporting.

In cases where the child’s statement is delayed or where procedural lapses take place during police interviews, the burden of proof becomes harder to meet.


In Nagpur, the average time from FIR registration to final judgment in POCSO cases has stretched from one year to three years, often longer in cases involving multiple witnesses or supplementary investigations.


Sessions judges in Nagpur who handle POCSO cases are also burdened with civil and criminal matters, leading to overbooked schedules.

Lack of fast-track infrastructure means that child witnesses often face multiple appearances in court, further complicating trial timelines. The absence of in-camera facilities in some sessions courts has also led to the relocation of sensitive hearings, adding delays.


The city has no full-time public prosecutors exclusively handling POCSO trials. Instead, the cases are assigned in rotation, often leading to incomplete preparation or inconsistent arguments during hearings. Legal aid for victims, though mandated, is not always delivered unless NGOs or child protection officers intervene directly.



Specific Cases, Victim Support and Local Challenges


The burden of navigating these cases often falls on the victims and their families, many of whom are unfamiliar with court procedures. Support services in Nagpur are led by the District Child Protection Unit (DCPU) and the Child Welfare Committee (CWC).


They are responsible for ensuring that the child receives counselling, shelter if needed, and legal guidance. Yet, few families follow through beyond the FIR stage, either due to stigma or lack of sustained contact from case officers.


Nagpur has one One Stop Centre under the Ministry of Women and Child Development scheme, which offers medical aid, police facilitation, legal counselling, and psychological therapy to women and girl victims.

However, the centre is not specifically tailored to children, and the volume of cases it handles often exceeds its capacity.


Some support has come from NGOs like Childline 1098 Nagpur, which conducts rescue operations, first-response care, and counselling.


Their outreach workers have identified cases in areas like Mankapur, Itwari, and Pachpaoli, where children were being abused by extended family or caregivers but had no access to reporting mechanisms.


These field interventions have led to formal FIRs in at least 15 cases between 2022 and 2024, although the conviction status of these cases remains unknown.



An additional barrier in Nagpur has been parental resistance to full cooperation during trials. In multiple cases, parents have either retracted complaints due to family pressure or refused to present the child in court for testimony.

This trend is especially visible in cases where the accused is known to the family or is a source of income. Police reports have logged at least 23 cases between 2021 and 2023 that were dropped due to witness withdrawal or settlement outside the system.


Another documented case involved a minor boy from Nandanvan who was sexually assaulted by a group of older teenagers in 2023.


The FIR was registered under POCSO, but the case was not prosecuted within the expected timeline. The victim’s family eventually migrated out of Nagpur, and the case remains pending.


The DCPU’s last available report noted the incident but marked the victim as “untraceable,” closing the loop on another unresolved file.


The city’s education system has yet to fully integrate POCSO awareness into school protocols.

While private schools have started to conduct sporadic awareness sessions, government schools have limited resources. Teachers have reported confusion around mandatory reporting obligations.


No standardised protocol exists in most schools for handling disclosures of abuse, which leads to inconsistent referral to police or CWC.


The cases that emerge from Nagpur under the POCSO Act from 2020 to 2025 are not just statistical entries but indicators of a system carrying more weight than it was built to bear.


While the law mandates urgency and sensitivity, its execution in the city remains uneven.


With hundreds of cases pending, only one functional special court, and no dedicated legal teams for child survivors, Nagpur’s child protection framework records abuse more often than it resolves it.

Each closed file reflects the work of dozens of people, police, judges, and outreach workers, but also the gaps they must work around. The problem is chronic, the response is fragmented, and the wait is long.



References




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