Rapist And Murderer Of Two-Year-Old Girl Sentenced To Death By Supreme Court In A 2012 Case

The Supreme Court on Thursday (3 October) confirmed the death penalty to a man convicted of murder and rape of a two-year-old girl. The sentence was confirmed by 2:1 majority by a three-judge bench of Justices RF Nariman, Surya Kant and R Subhash Reddy.

The top court was hearing convict Ravi's plea challenging a Bombay High Court order which had confirmed the death penalty after holding him guilty of murder and rape.

Justices Nariman and Kant observed that the victim was barely a two-year old baby whom the convict kidnapped and apparently kept on assaulting over 4-5 hours till she breathed her last. The bench said that it is a case where trust has been betrayed and social values are impaired.

The majority judgement also opined that the Parliament has thought it fit to award death penalty for child rape by amending Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) in 2019. In the amendment law, death sentence was introduced as a penalty for the offence of aggravated penetrative sexual assault on a child below 12 years.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)