Life term in jail for rape

A youth has been sentenced to life imprisonment by a Delhi court for kidnapping and raping a five-year-old girl and then throwing her into a canal after trying to strangle her to death and burning her hair.

A youth has been sentenced to life imprisonment by a Delhi court for kidnapping and raping a five-year-old girl and then throwing her into a canal after trying to strangle her to death and burning her hair.

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Additional sessions judge Kamini Lau also directed the Delhi government to pay Rs 1 lakh as compensation to the victim for her rehabilitation, saying the convict had committed a "ghastly" and "barbaric" crime and has given her a life-long trauma.

According to the prosecution, 25-year-old Shree Bhagwan had lured the minor in February this year to a secluded place on pretext of giving fruits and raped her there, after which he tried to strangulate her and burnt her hair and threw her in an over 15-feet-deep canal.

The girl was saved by a passerby who saw her clinging to plants on the canal's bank to save herself.