Court awards Death Sentence to Two for POCSO and Murder of Minor and her Mother

Two men, aged 29 & 21, were awarded death penalty on Tuesday by a Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) court in Kota for raping & murdering a 19-year-old girl & killing her 45-yearold mother in January last year. One of the convicts was a former employee of the teen’s father, a city-based jeweller.

A fine of Rs 80,000 was also slapped on the duo for the crime, which the court termed as “rarest of rare”.

On Jan 31, 2019, the convicts — residents of Tirath village in Bundi district — barged into the jeweller’s house under Bhimganjmandi police station area. They raped the girl before murdering both her & her mother & decamping with Rs 37 lakh cash & jewellery worth Rs 74 lakh, special public prosecutor (POCSO) Dhirendra Singh Choudhary said.

The victims, who were the only ones in the house at the time of the crime, were found in a pool of blood by the girl’s grandfather when he returned from a nearby temple.

Police subsequently registered a murder & robbery case & launched a manhunt for the accused, who were arrested on February 4, 2019, from Kota railway station. Cops recovered nearly Rs 21.7 lakh cash, 2.26kg of gold & 13.5kg of silver from their native Tirath village.

In the 248-page chargesheet filed in the last week of Apr 2019, investigators made a revelation that the girl was raped before her murder, following which, charges under Indian Penal Code (IPC) Section 376 (rape) was incorporated with other charges against the two — Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 302 (murder), 397 (robbery) & 460 (trespassing & housebreaking) — & the case transferred to a Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) court in July 2019.

In his 172-page judgment, special judge Ajay Kumar Sharma held the two men guilty of all charges & sentenced them to death besides imposing a fine of Rs 80,000 on the duo. During the trial, statements of 48 witnesses were recorded & 163 documents & 49 articles exhibited before the court.

Source Link