Death penalty to two for rape-murder of minor girls in Madhya Pradesh

The two men were awarded death sentences in two different cases - one by a POCSO court and another by the additional district judge court.

Two men in Madhya Pradesh were given death penalty in two different cases of rape and murder of minor girls, director general of prosecution, Madhya Pradesh, Rajendra Kumar said on Monday.

In both cases, the accused, who were known to the victims, dumped the bodies after murdering them . (AP File)

The convicted persons are 22-year old Honey Atwal,and 25-year-old Ravi Malviya.

According to the prosecution, on October 25, 2018, Atwal, who was staying in the house of an acquaintance in Indore, came back drunk. He was asked to go away by the owner. Not liking this, he picked up the man’s 4-year-old daughter from her tuition class. On October 27, child’s body was found at Khan river bank. Police arrested the accused Honey Atwal three days later.

The post-mortem report suggested the girl was raped before she was killed. Her body bore injury marks. The accused used a stone to attack and kill her.

“Circumstantial evidence, scientific evidence and positive DNA report proved the case. The accused is a habitual offender and he had committed a similar crime in 2013. Then he was convicted as a juvenile offender and got sentence of 3 years. He had completed three years sentence”, said the director general prosecution.

Protection of children from sexual offences (POCSO) court of additional district judge (ADJ) Savita Singh at Indore awarded capital sentence to accused Honey Atwal.

In the second case, additional district judge (ADJ) court of Pratishta Awasthi at Vidisha awarded capital punishment to accused Ravi Malviya for raping and murdering 7-year-old girl child in Vidisha district.

As per prosecution, the incident had taken place on October 25, 2015 in Civil Lines police station circle of Vidisha district.

“An unidentified body of a girl child was found naked in a well. Accused Ravi knew the mother of the victim very well. He picked up the child from her home and raped and strangulated her at a lonely place. He dumped the dead body in a well. Later, he was arrested”.

Director general Prosecution Rajendra Kumar said, “These are the 9th and 10th capital sentence of the year 2019 (awarded on Monday). Last year, total number of capital sentences were 21. No other state in India has secured 21 capital punishment in a year. This is a national record to secure two capital sentence in two different cases in one day.”