Mangaluru: Regular sex with a 20-year-old woman after holding out the unfulfilled promise of marriage has landed a man behind bars.

The accused is Maila alias Mailappa, 38, from a village near Belthangady. The sixth additional district and session's court on Thursday directed Maila to undergo four months of imprisonment, finding him guilty of the offence. Judge D T Puttarangaswamy acquitted Maila of charges of rape as he deemed it to be a case of consensual sex.

The incident took place in January 2014, according to the chargesheet filed by Puttur rural police.

The incident took place when the victim was alone in her house and her parents had gone out for work. The accused called the woman, his neighbour's daughter, to the latter's backyard. He then raped her and asked her not to tell about the incident to anybody with the promise of marrying her shortly. Maila took advantage of the woman in the same manner on two other occasions. When she became pregnant and informed Maila, he turned a cold shoulder towards her plight.

Maila then even refused to answer her calls. Afraid at the social and parental fallout of her situation, she left her house without informing her parents and joined a house in Bantwal as a domestic help. Worried at their daughter going missing, her parents filed a missing person's complaint with Puttur rural police and this was published in newspapers. The owner of the house where she worked read this news and brought her before the police on August 3, 2014.

The woman then narrated the circumstances and also filed a complaint accusing Maila of sexually assaulting her. Meanwhile, she gave birth to a boy on September 26, 2014. Based on her complaint, police arrested Maila, took his blood samples and that of the child for DNA analysis, which proved that the accused was the biological father of the child.

Prosecutor Judith O M Crasta examined as many as 23 witnesses, including the forensic scientist who carried out DNA analysis.

Maila was also slapped a fine of Rs 10,000, finding him guilty of cheating. Out of this, the survivor will get Rs 8,000. The judge also directed Maila to pay Rs 40,000 as compensation to the child and the District Legal Services Authority to pay compensation to the woman as per Karnataka Victim Compensation Scheme.