Indian descent man sentenced for sexually abusing boy on plane
Darpan News Desk IANS, 31 Jan, 2022 12:23 PM
New York, Jan 31 (IANS) A man of Indian descent has been sentenced to 15 months in prison after being found guilty of sexually abusing a 16-year-old boy, who took pictures of the assault on a plane, according to the Justice Department and media reports.
Judge Nancy E. Brasel handed down the sentence to Neeraj Chopra, 41, in a federal court in Minneapolis, acting prosecutor Charles J. Kovats said on Friday.
He was found guilty in July of the incident in April 2019 but sentenced only this month.
According to prosecutors, Chopra had used a blanket to cover his lap and and the right leg of the teen and "began inappropriately touching the victim" while on the flight from Boston to Minneapolis.
"Chopra ignored the victim's multiple requests to stop and continued to inappropriately touch the victim," prosecutors said.
The legal media outlet, Law & Crime, citing court papers reported that the victim was a boy who had asked Chopra to stop the abuse and when it continued took pictures of the assault, which were produced in court as evidence.
The victim's older brother, who was seated in a row in front of him, reported seeing his brother cry and alerted their father who switched seats with the victim, the publication said.
Chopra was met by law enforcement when the plane reached Minneapolis.
The publication reported that Chopra had "admitted to touching the boy inappropriately, but said it was because he was asleep and having a bad dream 'about a family member being killed'".
According to initial investigation, an improvised explosive device was planted in a bike that was used for transporting vegetables to the popular Friday Market (Juma Bazar) near an imambargah, a Shia religious place, in Orakzai
Sachin Aji Bhaskar, a resident of New York's Buffalo city, faces a minimum penalty of 10 years in prison, maximum of life in prison and a USD 250,000 fine.
"The Twitter behaviour we observe doesn't actually reflect the real underlying personality profile of an average American or Canadian," said study co-author Daniel Schmidtke from McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada.
Words like pashmina, dal, chutney and pyjamas form part of a list of 70 Indian origin words included in the Oxford English Dictionary unveiled by the British Council here on Thursday as part of its 70th anniversary in India.
An Indo-Canadian female dermatologist, found guilty of forging and using a fake diploma as well as other documents to practice medicine in Dubai, has lost her appeal against a six-month jail term.
