A court in Kerala on Tuesday sentenced to death a 29-year-old man for the brutal rape and murder of a five-year-old girl in Aluva, bringing the curtain down on a grisly murder that shook the southern state and sparked sweeping outrage.

Asafaq Alam, a migrant worker from Bihar who was out on bail in connection with a Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act for molesting a minor girl in Delhi when he committed the crime in Aluva, was convicted by the court on November 4. He was found guilty on all 16 counts against him, including rape, carnal intercourse against the order of nature, murder, abduction, indignity to human corpse, destruction of evidence and sections 5(m), 5(i), 5(l) of Pocso and section 77 of Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act.

On Tuesday, Ernakulam additional district and sessions judge K Soman termed the crime a “diabolical act of utmost sexual violence” which was “pre-planned”, “calculated” and ended in “cold-blooded murder”.

“The cruel tendency of the accused and his total disregard to human life is writ large from the manner of attack and the nature of injuries caused to the dead body revealed from the post mortem report. This incident has created tremble feeling in the society and upset the collective conscience of the community,” the court said.

“... If the accused is permitted to be a part of the society, it would be a threat to girl children, including those who are yet to be born,” the court added.

Special public prosecutor G Mohanraj said the death sentence will be carried out after a confirmation from the high court.

“It has also awarded five life sentence terms for offences including raping a person who cannot give consent, intercourse against the order of nature, and raping a person multiple times. The imprisonment will continue until the end of his natural life. The court has awarded the maximum punishment for each of the offences. All sentences shall run concurrently,” he added.

The court also imposed a fine of ₹7.3 lakh on the convict and also rejected the defence argument for a reduced sentence.

The verdict came 109 days after the crime and the trial was wrapped up in 26 days.

“Asafaq Alam should be executed as soon as possible if we need some peace of mind. He should not be allowed to be in prison for long,” the girl’s parents said.

Prosecution lawyer Mohanraj said that he was satisfied with the verdict.

Alam, who had arrived in Kochi in 2021 in search of employment, was arrested by the police on the evening of July 28 in an inebriated state after a five-year-old girl, the daughter of migrant workers from Bihar, was reported missing from her rented home near Aluva.

Witnesses and CCTV visuals had pointed to Alam loitering around the Aluva market and crossing the national highway holding the girl’s hand. At noon on July 29, the mutilated body of the minor girl was found dumped in a sack under heaps of waste and sludge in an abandoned spot near the Aluva market.

The police investigation said that the accused lured the child with sweets from her home and took her to an abandoned spot where he raped her before strangling her.

At the time, he was out on bail after being charged in a Pocso case in Delhi’s Ghazipur, where he was arrested in 2018 for molesting and sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl.

The court said the incident not only “upset the collective conscience of the community”, it also created a “trembling feeling” in the society. “The manner in which a five-year-old girl was abducted, intoxicated with liquor, raped repeatedly, done carnal intercourse against the order of the nature, murdered the child and the method adopted by the accused for defacing and concealing the dead body revealed the traits of outrageous criminality in the behaviour of the accused and his premeditated action,” the court said.

MR Ajith Kumar, additional director general of police (law and order), told reporters that Alam was arrested within six hours of the victim being reported missing. “If he had not been found and arrested at that time, we may not have been able to prove the charges against him. Locals were incredibly helpful at that time and all the prosecution witnesses participated in the trial with enthusiasm,” he added.

Kerala politicians welcomed the verdict.

Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the judgment — which was delivered on Children’s Day — will serve as a warning to all those who commit atrocities on children.

“The little child was a victim of utmost cruelty that shocked the public conscience. All parts of the system worked efficiently to catch the culprit and bring him to justice. Police began the investigation as soon as the missing complaint of the child arrived and arrested the accused within a few hours. The charge sheet was submitted before the court in 35 days and the accused was found guilty within 100 days of the incident,” said the chief minister in a statement.

Leader of the Opposition, VD Satheesan, said the verdict was historic and confirmed people’s faith in the rule of law and the dignity of the legal system. “Even though there is no substitute for a five-year-old child’s life, Kerala along with the justice system needs to hold that family together. No child or family should suffer such a fate,” he said.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the LatestLaws staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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