A special court has sentenced 10 years of rigorous imprisonment to a 35-year-old van driver for raping two girls. He used to drop the girls at a local school in Bhiwandi. Tulshiram Manere was convicted and awarded the sentence to him by Special POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act) court judge S P Gondhalekar on Friday. The court also imposed a penalty of Rs 28,000 on him.

According to the prosecution, the convict, who used to ferry schoolchildren in a van daily, had raped the two eight-year-old girls,  on multiple occasions between June and December 2016. "On Saturdays, the school timing of these two girls used to be different. Taking advantage of the situation, he would take the victims to an isolated place and molest and rape them. This happened on multiple occasions between June and December 2016," said additional public prosecutor Ujjwala Moholkar.