Indore man gets death penalty after 3-week trial for raping, killing infant
Sunil Bheel was arrested on April 21 for allegedly assaulting the six-month child after an argument with her mother.
A 25-year-old man who kidnapped, raped and then killed a three-month-old girl was sentenced to death on Saturday by a fast track court in Indore within 23 days of the crime, in one of the quickest deliveries of justice the country has seen.
The death penalty was awarded under the Indian Penal Code and not under the recent ordinance amending the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act that was rushed through last month even as the country seemed to be reeling under an epidemic of rapes of minors.
District public prosecutor Mohammad Akram Sheikh said the accused, Navin Gadke, was sentenced to death under IPC Sections 302 (murder) and 376A (raping a minor), and given a life term under POSCO Act.
Additional sessions judge Varsha Sharma gave the verdict.
She said: “The accused has raped a three- month, four-day old innocent and helpless baby who knew nothing more than smiling and crying, and then killed her in a brutal way by throwing her on the floor. Therefore this act is not against an individual but against the entire society.”
The judge went on to say in her verdict: “This accused is a gangrene in the body of the society and to save society such parts should be cut. If such people are given life sentences, then there is a possibility that they might come out and commit the same crime once again. This is a rarest of rare case and the accused should receive the maximum sentence.”
The incident, which numbed Indore and all India, took place on the intervening night of April 19 and 20. The parents of the minor are poor labourers who lived on the pavement near the Rajwada in Indore. Gadke, who is a relative of the victim, picked up the child in the wee hours when she was sleeping with her mother. He took her on a cycle to the basement of a nearby building, raped her and when she started crying flung her on the floor and banged her head repeatedly , resulting in her death. The minor’s body was discovered in the afternoon and the accused was arrested the same day.
Indore deputy inspector general (DIG) Harinarayan Chari Mishra formed a special investigation team (SIT), headed by inspector Shivpal Singh Khushwaha, to probe the case; collector Nishant Warwade appointed district public prosecutor Mohammad Akram Sheikh to fight the case for the prosecution.
The head of SIT, Kushwaha, completed the investigation within seven days. “We went through the footage of all the closed circuit television cameras in the area and saw the accused taking the child in his cycle and entering the building at 4.45 am and then coming back alone at around 5 am. We picked him up for questioning and he confessed to his crime. But the clinching evidence was the matching of the victim’s DNA samples with the blood found in his shirt, cycle and parts of his body. His DNA was found in the minor’s body.”
The inspector said the motive of the crime was revenge. The accused had a fight with the victim’s mother the night before as she had refused to mediate in his ongoing fight with his wife. The victim’s mother broke a bottle of liquor he had during the altercation.
Public prosecutor Sheikh said the court heard the case every day, with each hearing lasting four to five hours to ensure speedy delivery of justice. The 120-page charge sheet was presented on April 27. He said that the prosecution and police worked in close coordination and got the statement of all 29 prosecution witnesses recorded by May 8. On May 9, the accused was given chance of defend himself, and the judgment came on Saturday.
