A Nagpur court on Monday sentenced a man to death on three charges in a 2019 case of kidnapping, rape and murder of a five-year-old girl.
However, the death sentence will have to be confirmed by the Bombay High Court.
The court had earlier found the accused guilty and, after convicting the man, also awarded life imprisonment on two different charges.
District Judge and Additional Sessions Judge S R Padwal sentenced the convict, Sanjay Puri, 32, to death under Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code, Section 376(A)(B) (rape of minor) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
The case was of a five-year-old girl who lived on a farm with her labourer parents. When the girl went missing, a complaint was lodged and later Puri, who worked as a guard at the farm, was arrested. The minor girl’s brutalised body had been bludgeoned and was found on the farm.
When the incident came to light, there was a major outrage, with villagers protesting against it.
Special Public Prosecutor Prashant Kumar Sathianathan, representing the prosecution, had brought in 26 witnesses against Puri.
Seeking maximum punishment, Sathianathan had argued that the accused had committed the barbaric act of rape and murder of a five-year-old girl in a most inhuman and cruel manner, and thus he deserved nothing less than capital punishment.
Source Agencies
