A court in Hyderabad on Monday sentenced a 48-year-old man to 5 years of rigorous imprisonment for sexually assaulting his adopted 13-year-old daughter in 2015.

The IX Additional District Sessions Judge at L B Nagar found the man guilty under relevant sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

He was also slapped with a fine of Rs 2,500, a release from the Rachakonda Police Commissionerate said.

The prosecution said that the couple adopted the girl as they did not have any children.

In March 2015, the man sexually assaulted the girl at home in the absence of his wife and threatened to kill her if she revealed the incident to anyone, the investigation established.

On May 30, 2015, he again tried to sexually assault the girl in an inebriated state and when she resisted and shouted, he got angry and hit her with the handle of a saw and cut her right wrist.

Following this, a complaint was filed and he was arrested.

Earlier this month, a 46-year-old man was arrested after he allegedly sexually assaulted a five-year-old girl, who was the daughter of his tenant, in Kalapathar in Hyderabad.

The girl, a Class 1 student, was playing outside her house when the accused lured her into his room and assaulted her. As she started crying, the accused let her off. The girl narrated the incident to her mother, who approached the police and filed a complaint.

In the last week of December 2019, the Hyderabad city police released its annual roundup of crime in the city under its jurisdiction, and said that crimes had decreased by around 3% in 2019.

While the police said that there was a reduction in the number of rape cases being filed at police stations, with 150 being registered in 2019, against 178 in 2018, POCSO cases saw an increase with 329 reported cases in 2019, as against 305 in 2018.

Read: Overall crime in Hyderabad city dropped by 3% in 2019, POCSO cases went up

PTI inputs