India, Oct. 31 -- A 54-year-old man who raped a four-year-old girl in 2017 was sentenced to 20 years in jail by a fast track court in Manipur on Friday.

The convict, a resident of Imphal East, has also been ordered to pay a Rs.1 lakh fine.

"Rape and sexual assault destroy not only the physical being of a child but her spirit, innocence, and dignity. The judiciary must stand as the guardian of that innocence," judge W. Tonen Meitei said in his order, delivered two days after he convicted Thounaojam Tejkumar Singh, under Section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, which relates to aggravated penetrative sexual assault.

Judge Tonen said the sexual assault was "a crime against humanity," stressing that "...