UP: Mathura POCSO court gives death penalty to man for rape, murder of Dalit minor girl

Mathura (UP), Sep 3 (PTI) A POCSO court here has sentenced a man to death for raping and killing an eight-year-old Dalit girl in 2020, terming the case "rarest of rare".

A fine of Rs 3.20 lakh has also been imposed on the convict, Mahesh alias Masua, police said.

Special Judge (POCSO Court-II) Brajesh Kumar (II) on Tuesday observed that the brutality inflicted on the child warranted the maximum punishment.

The judgment comes nearly four-and-a-half years after the crime, marking the fourth death sentence in the district in three years in similar cases of rape and murder.

According to police, the incident took place on November 26, 2020, when the girl had gone with her mother to collect firewood in a forest area under Jaint police station and went missing.

A search was launched and the minor's body was found near a culvert in the forest in an extremely mutilated condition. A post-mortem revealed that she had been raped and strangled to death, with her neck bones broken and her eyes protruding.

Police collected forensic evidence from the scene and registered a case initially under erstwhile Indian Penal Code (IPC) Section 363 for kidnapping. Later charges of rape, unnatural offences, murder and destruction of evidence was also added to the case.

The probe led to the arrest of Mahesh, from Tarauli-Sumali village, after his fingerprints and other forensic evidence matched the crime scene.

After the trial, the court rejected all defence arguments and sentenced Mahesh to death, with an additional year of imprisonment if he fails to pay the fine.

He was convicted under IPC Sections 363 (kidnapping), 376 (rape), 377 (unnatural offences), 302 (murder), and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) and relevant provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act along with the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. PTI COR KIS OZ OZ