Youth gets death for rape, murder of 3-yr-old

Sunit Dhawan

Tribune News Service

Rohtak, February 26

The court of Additional District and Sessions Judge Seema Singhal today sentenced Sandeep, 26, a resident of Najafgarh in Delhi, to death for raping and murdering a three-year-old girl of migrant labourers.

The parents of the victim were working as construction labourers at Officers’ Colony near Sector 14 here and the girl went missing on September 11, 2013.

Two elder sisters of the victim returned home and told their parents about the matter. The family members and fellow labourers went out in search of the missing child. Finally, the girl’s mutilated body was found lying on the premises of an Agriculture Department office located nearby on September 12.

The police registered a case on the basis of the statement of the girl’s father Dinesh. Sandeep, who lived in the neighbourhood of the deceased girl, was later arrested and charged with rape and murder.

Delivering the judgement, ADJ Seema Singhal observed that “it is a matter of concern that if such is the security at prime localities (Officers’ Colony), then how safe are the others (localities)?”

The judge quoted the following lines from ‘Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College’ (1747) by Thomas Gray: “Alas, regardless of their doom, The little victims play! No sense has they of ills to come, Nor care beyond today” in the judgement. She also questioned the relevance of the ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ drive in this context.

Apart from sentencing Sandeep to death for offence under Section 302 of the IPC, the judge also sentenced him to life imprisonment for offence under Section 6 of the POCSO Act, 2012.

He was further sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for five years for offence under Section 363 (kidnapping) and 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment for offence under Section 366 of the IPC.

The court also sentenced Sandeep’s accomplice Narender to rigorous imprisonment for four years for offence under Section 212 (harbouring offender).

Four arrested in gang rape case

Gurgaon: A Class IX student was allegedly abducted and gang-raped by two seniors from her school. The accused are Class XII students with one reportedly being victim's close friend. While the duo has been arrested for raping the victim, two other boys of their class have been held for being part of the 'plan'. The victim told the police on Thursday that she was picked in front of her school and gang-raped in Manesar on Wednesday.  The two accused had picked up the girl from the school in a car on the pretext of giving her a ride. She claimed they took her to a secluded spot in the Manesar area, while their two other friends followed them on a bike. The youth in the car raped her. —TNS