A priest has been jailed for 40 years for repeatedly raping a 12-year-old girl at his church.
Sanil K James was convicted of raping and sexually assaulting the child at a Salvation Army church in the southern Indian state of Kerala in 2014.
The court heard he raped the girl, now aged 13, several times over two months.
The 37-year-old is also being investigated for the alleged rape of another girl during the same period.
The judge sentenced James to two consecutive 20-year prison terms - without parole - and also fined him 20,000 rupees (£212).
"The court said the priest deserved the maximum punishment for this cruel act," said Prosecutor Pious Mathew.
Activist Smriti Minocha welcomed the jail term which she said was highly unusual in a country where even those sentenced to life usually only serve 14 years.
"Courts normally award life sentences to rape convicts but sentencing him to 40 years is exceptional," said the director of the women's justice initiative at the Human Rights Law Network, a Delhi-based NGO.
"Most of the cases of child sexual abuse remain undocumented, it's only grave acts like rape and molestation which are reported."
More than 18,000 children were sexually assaulted in India in 2014, according to the country's national crime records bureau.
A UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in 2014 said one-in-three rape victims in India was a minor and half of the abusers were known to the child or in a position of trust and responsibility.
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