Dubai: A vendor, who molested an eight-year-old schoolboy after luring him for a video and photo session at a children’s garment store where he worked, was jailed for three months on Thursday.
The Indian schoolboy accompanied his mother to a mall where she worked in a pharmacy on Saturdays after his Quran recitation lessons in Al Hamriya.
One Saturday, the boy was present with his mother at the pharmacy when the 20-year-old Pakistani vendor, who worked in a neighbouring store, convinced the mother to allow her son to accompany him to the garment store for a photo shoot session for advertisement purposes.
Two months later, a neighbouring shop owner cautioned the mother to keep her son away from the defendant after he had seen the vendor chatting with the boy.
When the mother asked her son about what the vendor had done to him, he said he had been molested.
The Dubai Court of First Instance convicted the accused of molesting the boy twice.
Presiding judge Urfan Omar said the accused, who pleaded not guilty, will be deported after serving his jail term.
The defendant’s lawyer defended in court that his client had been maliciously and unfoundedly accused of molesting the child.
The boy testified that the accused behaved with him indecently after he took him to the garment shop for a video and photo session.
“He told my mother that he wanted to take me with him to try new clothes so he could film me for an advertisement. When I went with him, he gave me new clothes to wear. While I had been changing the clothes in the fitting room, he came there and behaved with me in an indecent manner. He touched me in an indecent way and did not make any video for the advertisement. He called me there another time and did the same to me … then he gave me a toy gun and warned me not to tell anyone about what he had done to me,” said the boy. The primary ruling remains subject to appeal.
