Haryana teen gets death penalty for raping, killing eight-year-old in Rohtak

A 19-year-old youth from Haryana was given the death penalty for raping and murdering an eight-year-old girl in June this year. Additional sessions judge Naresh Kumar a Rewari court termed the act a rarest of the rare and a lesser punishment than the death penalty cannot be given for the same. The judge likened the incident to the infamous Nirbhaya case of 2012 and said that it deserved a similar punishment. On June 9, the victim was alone in her house, when the convict, known to the family, entered the house and lured the girl into his room and committed the crime. The court found during the trial that the convict first showed porn to the eight-year-old girl and then forced himself on her.

The convict and the victim’s father worked in the same factory and lived in a rented room in the same house in Bawal township. He gagged her and tied her arms and legs with a scarf when she resisted and started screaming for help.  He then raped her. Fearing she might inform her family, the boy then strangulated her to death and hid her body in an almirah in his room.

Read More | Nirbhaya: If walking late at night was a rape invitation, so was wearing a diaper

The parents of the victim had taken her brother to the hospital when the incident occurred. When they returned and did not find their daughter home, the boy distracted them by telling them to have seen the victim going to her friend’s house. The police were informed and they started asking neighbours about the whereabouts of the girl. During suspicion, the contradictory answers of the convict made the police suspicious. His room was then searched and the body of the victim was retrieved, according to a report in the Hindustan Times.

The 19-year-old was booked under Sections 372 (selling minor for purposes of prostitution), 376 (rape), 201(causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. He has been convicted in all of them by the court.

Rahul Sharma, SP, Rewari, Haryana: Sessions court has awarded death sentence to the man convicted of rape & murder of an 8-yr-old girl earlier this year.The incident had occurred when the girl was alone at her house in Rewari. pic.twitter.com/rGmxmXtQKD

— ANI (@ANI) December 23, 2018

Also Read | Maharashtra: Girl raped and strangled to death at home

While announcing the quantum of punishment, the judge said, “The court has to consider it as one of the rarest of rare case and lesser punishment than death penalty cannot be given. Further, the pain and suffering of that particular innocent child is very material. The court cannot ignore it. This case cannot be considered as lesser to Nirbhaya because the victim who was innocent, having a bright future, was murdered for the purpose of sexual act and in the day light within the vicinity of the village.”