E-Paper
HC affirms death sentence to rape, murder accused
THE ALLAHABAD High Court affirmed death sentence awarded to a person for raping and brutally killing a five-year-old girl. Earlier, the Additional Sessions Judge of Agra had on December 24, 2005 awarded death penalty to Bantu for abducting, raping and killing a minor, Vaishali. Bantu had filed criminal appeal before the High Court, challenging the conviction.
THE ALLAHABAD High Court affirmed death sentence awarded to a person for raping and brutally killing a five-year-old girl.
Earlier, the Additional Sessions Judge of Agra had on December 24, 2005 awarded death penalty to Bantu for abducting, raping and killing a minor, Vaishali. Bantu had filed criminal appeal before the High Court, challenging the conviction.
This judgement was pronounced by the a Division Bench comprising Justice Mahesh Chand Jain and Justice KK Mishra after hearing the counsel for the appellant and Additional Government Advocate-I Karuna Nand Bajpai.
The Bench said that the present case fell in the rarest of rare category, calling for death penalty for the murder of a helpless and hapless five-year-old girl after raping her. The murder was committed in extremely brutal, grotesque, diabolical, revolting and dastardly manner, so as to arouse intense and extreme indignation of the community. The accused took away his neighbour’s daughter to a field, raped and brutally murdered her.
“The accused is totally depraved. He cannot be allowed to return to the society. The offence has definitely generated a deep sense of abhorrence in the society,” the Court observed.
With reference to the criterion of a case falling in the category of the rarest of rare cases, the Bench remarked that “rarest of rare cases in which death sentence should be awarded, is one when the collective conscience of the community is so shocked that it will expect the holders of judicial power to inflict death penalty irrespective of their personal opinion as regards desirability or otherwise of retaining death penalty”.
According to the prosecution, the crime took place in Basai Khurd village in Tajganj area of Agra district.
There was a Devi Jagran at the house of one Chandrasen alias Taplu in the village where several people had assembled. Vaishali had also gone there along with her father and uncle. Around 9 pm, Bantu reached there and on the pretext of giving balloon to Vaishali, took her away. When Vaishali did not return, a search was made by the family members.
At around 9.30 pm, they found Bantu inserting a stick in her private parts. They caught Bantu and handed him over to the police. Vaishali was unconscious, bleeding profusely. She had several injuries on her body and was not responding at all. She was rushed to the SN Medial College, Agra, where the doctors pronounced her dead.
