A Bengal court sentenced a man to death for raping and murdering a minor girl, calling it a rarest of rare case. The judge noted, “The victim was the same age as his daughter.”
A special POCSO court in Jalpaiguri district, West Bengal, has sentenced a man to death for the rape and murder of a minor girl.
The judge noted that the victim was the same age as the accused’s daughter, categorizing the crime as one of the rarest of rare cases.
Convict Haripada Roy received the death penalty for his actions against the girl.
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Judge Rintu Sur of the Jalpaiguri special POCSO court also ordered the district legal services authority to provide Rs.5 lakh in compensation to the victim’s family.
Additionally, he was sentenced to seven years of rigorous imprisonment and fined Rs.5,000 for tampering with evidence.
According to prosecution lawyer Debasish Dutta, the 11-year-old girl was abducted from in front of her home on September 29, 2023, before being raped and murdered.
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The lawyer explained that many villagers, including the victim’s father and uncle, were at a panchayat board meeting that day.
When they returned, the girl’s mother informed them that she had been missing since 2 PM. After a thorough search failed to locate her, the uncle filed a missing person report at the Dhupguri police station.
A few days later, the girl’s body was discovered in a sack near a local river. A post-mortem examination revealed that she had been raped and strangled, Dutta added.
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The accused, a neighbor, was apprehended after locals reported seeing the girl entering his home, which led to the collection of further evidence, according to the prosecution.
Under the POCSO Act (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act), 2012, the rape and murder of a minor girl (under 18 years) is treated as an extremely serious offence, and it overlaps with provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and POCSO.