LUCKNOW: A fast-track court in Ghaziabad awarded the death penalty to a man for raping and murdering the two-year-old daughter of his colleague on the night of October 19, 2020. The order was delivered on Wednesday.
The court had fast-tracked the case and had convicted the 30-year-old accused on January 18, after a 29-day-long trial. Special judge (Pocso Act), Mahendra Srivastava, termed the case as the “rarest of rare” while pronouncing the judgment and awarding the death sentence to the convict.
During the hearing, the prosecution claimed that the crime took place on the night of October 19, 2020, when the convict, a colleague of the victim’s father, went to their house and took the victims out after telling her mother that they were going to a nearby shop.
It was easy for the convict to woo the kid as he was well known to her family. They worked at the same factory. At times, the man would stay with the family and the girl would call him “chacha (uncle)”, said the police.
When the convict did not return with the girl till late at night, the family of the victim launched a hunt for her and the convict. They even approached the local police station but to no avail.
However, the next afternoon, the mutilated body of the girl was spotted near a drain in an industrial area. The accused was netted thereafter.
The police filed the charge sheet in the case on December 16, 2020, under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and also under sections 302, 201, 376(A), 376(A, B) of IPC on December 24, 2020.
The prosecution said the autopsy report confirmed that the child had suffered eight external injuries, including a broken hyoid bone (U-shaped bone in the neck) pointing to death due to asphyxia from strangling. During the investigation, the forensic team confirmed that the DNA of the accused was found on the body of the victim.
Apart from the death penalty, the convict was also awarded life imprisonment for the murder of the victim (IPC Section 302) and seven years’ imprisonment for the destruction of evidence (IPC Section 201).
While producing 10 witnesses to support the case, the prosecution claimed that the accused had raped the minor girl and murdered her brutally. He hid her body near a drain at the crime scene. While the victim’s mother confirmed that he had taken the child away, another witness testified that the accused was seen carrying the girl on his shoulders near the crime scene, claimed the prosecution.
Even the CCTV footage procured from a mobile shop substantiated the prosecution's claim that the accused was seen taking the girl along between 8.50 pm and 8.55 pm on the fateful night.
As per the prosecution, the court based its order on a number of rulings while observing that the crime impacted society at large. The court also observed that there was apparently little chance for the convict’s reformation. Moreover, the level of brutality perpetrated by the convict on the victim made it a case nothing less than a death penalty for the convict.