In a strange incident, an Air Force personnel was acquitted by a special POCSO court on Saturday (March 7, 2026), 7 years after he was accused of molesting his then minor sister-in-law.
As per reports, the man was accused by his wife’s minor sister of sexually harassing her in March 2019, in the Bidhnu police station area of the Kanpur district of Uttar Pradesh. However, 7 years after the alleged incident, the victim admitted before the court that the incident did not take place in reality but in a ‘dream’. Based on the victim’s statement, the Special Judge of the POSCO court passed an order acquitting the accused.
The accused, Anurag Shukla, a resident of Bithoor in Kanpur district, joined the Indian Air Force in 2015. On February 10, 2019, he got married to a woman from the Bidhnu town of the district. On February 13, 2019, a few days after his wedding, he went to his in-laws’ place to pick up his wife. His wife’s 15-year-old sister also accompanied them to his house.
On the night of March 8, 2019, Anurag Shukla’s wife heard the screams of her minor sister. She rushed to her room and was informed by her minor sister that she had been grabbed and molested by Anurag Shukla. The wife immediately called the police, and in the meantime, Anurag Shukla went outside along with his father. Interestingly, the FIR in the case was filed on August 3, 2019, about 5 months after the incident. The FIR was lodged at the Naubasta police station based on the complaint of the victim’s father. Anurag Shukla was arrested by the police on September 29, 2019. He spent 19 days in jail before being released on bail on October 17, 2019. In the same month, a charge sheet was filed before the court by the police, and charges were framed against Shukla under the POCSO Act in November 2019.
During the trial of the case, the victim told the court that at the time of the incident, she was lying in her room after taking antibiotics. Due to the effect of the antibiotics, she was half-asleep and felt as if her brother-in-law, Anurag Shukla, had grabbed and molested her. She clarified that Shukla did not molest her in reality and that she was hallucinating.
After recording the victim’s statement, the POCSO court acquitted Shukla, who alleged that, just 10 days after his wedding, his wife’s family pressured him to transfer his properties to his wife and sister-in-law. He said that not only did he endure severe mental stress and humiliation, but his promotion was also delayed by years.
