KOTA: A court in Rajasthan's Jhalawar district on Monday sentenced a man to death for raping and murdering his landlord's six-year-old daughter two years ago.
The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act court-I judge Pradeep Kumar Verma had held 42-year-old Lalchand Bairagi guilty of rape and murder of the minor under sections of the Indian Penal Code and the POCSO Act last Thursday and decided to pronounce the quantum of punishment on Monday.
The court said in the order on Monday that he be "hanged till his last breath".
The court also slapped the convict with a fine of Rs 65,000.
The incident took place in a village under Jhalawar Sadar police station limits in 2020.
In view of the heinous nature of the crime, the speedy trial of the case was conducted.
Terming the crime "rarest of the rare" in nature, the judge observed that there was no possibility of rehabilitation of the rape and murder accused and "he did not deserve to join the mainstream of the society," said public prosecutor Ramhetar Gurjar.
The convict is a resident of Nayagaon in Madhya Pradesh.
He worked as a truck driver in Jhalawar city and lived in a rented house, around 200 metres away from the girl's home, he said.
The girl, who was then in Class 1, had gone missing from her house on March 11, 2020 and following search by the family members, her bloodstained body was found the next day from the kitchen of the house rented by Bairagi, the public prosecutor said.
The body was found stuffed in a plastic bag which was placed under stone slab of the kitchen.
On the report by the minor's father, the police lodged a case of rape and murder under sections IPC sections 376 (AB), 377, 302, 201 and provisions of the POCSO Act on March 12 and arrested the accused the same day.
Since then, he had been in jail under judicial custody, Gurjar said.
Statements of at least 30 witnesses were recorded and at least 56 documents were produced before the court during the trial of the case, the public prosecutor added.