The Hindu : Front Page : Death sentence for rape and murder of child

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Feb 11, 2005

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Death sentence for rape and murder of child

By Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI, FEB. 10. The Supreme Court has held that the rape and murder of a girl child is within the ambit of the "rarest of rare cases." The court awarded death sentence to the accused for raping and murdering a six-year-old child.

A Bench comprising Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice S.H. Kapadia set aside an Allahabad High Court order acquitting the accused, who was sentenced to death by the trial court.

The child who hailed from Uttar Pradesh, was lured by the accused and was last seen by three people with the accused on his bicycle, on March 16, 2001. Her body was found a day later in a sugarcane field.

(The hanging of Dhananjoy Chatterjee on August 14, 2004, in Alipur jail for raping and murdering a 14-year-old school girl had led to the deaths of some children who tried to enact the hanging.)

The trial Court, relying on the circumstantial evidence, convicted Satish and sentenced him to death.

The High Court felt that conviction could not be solely based on circumstantial evidence and acquitted him.

The Apex Court Bench said "rape is one of the most depraved acts. The iniquitous act becomes abominable when the victim is a child. The diabolic act reaches the lowest level of humanity when the rape is followed by brutal murder.

"The victim's parents would have never thought in their wildest dreams that she would not come back home and would fall victim to the barbaric and inhuman acts of the respondent."

Justice Pasayat, writing the judgment for the Bench, said that awarding disproportionate punishments for offences had undesirable repercussions.

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