POSCO court awards death to man for rape, murder
A POCSO court in Uttar Pradesh has awarded death penalty to a man for raping and murdering a three-year-old girl and also imposed a fine of Rs 25,000 on him. District Government Counsel Manoj Kumar Pandey said Additional Sessions Judge and Special Judge (POCSO) Vinod Kumar Chaurasia on Monday sentenced Gagan Kumar to death under relevant provisions of the IPC Sections 376A (rape resulting in death), 302 (murder) and provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
According to the prosecution, the court had reserved its verdict on June 8 after completion of arguments. It had convicted the accused on June 22. Pandey said that according to the prosecution case, the girl’s mother had gone to her brother’s in-laws’ house on June 12, 2020. When she returned home around 9 pm, she found her three-year-old daughter missing.
On being questioned, the child’s grandmother told her that around 7.30 pm, Kumar had taken the girl with him on the pretext of buying her toffees, he said. When the child did not return, family members launched a search and found her body near the accused’s house.
An FIR was registered against Kumar at Handia police station on June 13, 2020, based on a complaint lodged by the girl’s mother. The post-mortem examination confirmed that the child had been raped and strangled to death, the prosecution said. Observing the gravity of the offence, the court sentenced Kumar to death and directed him to pay the fine of Rs 25,000, Pandey added.
