The Karnataka High Court has upheld the death sentence of three people convicted of gang-raping and murdering a seven-year-old girl, holding that the crime was “barbaric and inhuman” and fell under the “rarest category”.
High Court of Karnataka (Shutterstock)In its order on February 6, a bench of Justices HP Sandesh and Venkatesh Naik T said the crime was a “demonic” act that shocked the collective conscience of the society and such crimes must be suppressed with an “iron hand”.
The High Court upheld the death sentence imposed by a designated court to protect children from sex crimes in Mangaluru and said that imposing a lesser sentence would send a wrong message to the society and the public in a case involving the brutal sexual assault and murder of a child.
It said the girl was only seven years old when she was raped and then killed to silence her. It said a lower sentence would reduce the gravity of the crime and fail to meet the goals of deterrence and social condemnation in cases involving brutal sexual violence against children.
“The accused inhumanely, mercilessly abused the girl, aged around 7 years and 7 months, for repeated sexual acts one after the other, without regard for the lives of the victims and it is nothing but a barbaric act of gang-rape.”
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The event took place in November 2021. The deceased’s parents were migrant workers living on the premises of a tile factory on the outskirts of Mangaluru. All three accused also worked at the same place.
According to the prosecution, they had been planning the crime for months and on the day of the incident, when she was playing outside with her siblings, they lured the victim with some sweets and sweets and took her to a room without CCTV cameras. Three of them raped her. When the child screamed, they covered his face and strangled his neck, causing him to die “on the spot”.
The convicts, along with the fourth accused, who jumped bail during the trial, then dumped the body in a drain and covered it with bricks.
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Upholding the death sentence, the high court held that the prosecution had successfully established an unbroken chain of circumstances pointing to their guilt. The bench noted that the evidence on record – including forensic material, CCTV footage, witness testimony and medical evidence – clearly proved “post-crime premeditation, collective participation and attempt to destroy evidence”.
It noted the trial court’s findings that the offense was characterized by extreme brutality and brutality and rape and murder of a minor amounted to a grave attack on the dignity of the child and the conscience of the society.
The High Court said it found no meaningful mitigating circumstances other than the young age of the accused, which itself was not determinative. Applying the constitutional requirement of respect for human life under Article 21, besides following the principles laid down by the Supreme Court, the high court said that where crimes against children or helpless women are “extraordinarily cruel, inhuman and heinous”, the balance “leans decisively in favor of the death penalty”.
