Man gets death sentence for raping 4-yr-old girl in MP

Satna (MP), September 19 

A court here on Wednesday awarded death sentence to a contractual teacher for raping a four-year-old girl in this Madhya Pradesh district nearly three months ago, saying he turned out to be a demon instead of acting as a protector and the case fell in the "rarest of rare" category.

With this, 14 rapists have been sentenced to death in Madhya Pradesh since February 28 in 13 separate cases - for raping 12 girls and sodomising a boy.

Additional District and Sessions Judge Dinesh Kumar Sharma awarded the death sentence to Mahendra Singh Gond (27) after convicting him under IPC section 376 AB (rape on woman under 12 years of age) and section 5/6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

"Being a teacher, the accused has a duty to improve the society. But instead of acting as a protector, he turned out to be a demon with his act of raping a four-year four months and one-day old innocent girl, and inflicted barbaric injuries to her private parts," the court said.

"He committed the heinous crime on a hapless girl, who does not even know the meaning of sex," the judge observed.

The court said it is of the view that the accused poses a "great threat" to the society, and considers the case fit to be in the "rarest of rare" category.

"Therefore, according to the law he deserves death," the court said.

The victim, who was raped on July 1, is still in a critical condition and undergoing treatment at a Delhi-based hospital.

The court also sentenced the convict to seven years of rigorous imprisonment for kidnapping the girl.

"The court awarded death penalty to Gond after recording the statements of the girl and her parents over video-conferencing as they are in Delhi," District Prosecution Officer Rampal Singh told PTI.

The judge cross-examined 21 prosecution witnesses.

According to Singh, Gond was friendly with the victim's family. On the night of July 1, he went to their place in a village Satna in an inebriated condition to meet the girl's father. There, he saw the girl sleeping next to her father on a cot outside their house. He returned home after meeting the girl's father.

After some time, Gond came back and spotted the girl alone on the cot as her father had gone to relieve himself, Singh said.

"Taking advantage of the situation, Gond took the girl away from her house and raped her. After the sexual assault, he dumped her into the bushes," he added.

When the girl's father returned and did not find his daughter, he raised an alarm and the family launched a search for her. Later, they found her lying in the thick bushes.

Gond was later arrested by the police and a charge sheet was filed against him.

Madhya Pradesh was the first state to enact a law last December, providing death penalty for rapists of minor girls below 12 after coming under fire for growing number of such cases.

The Centre brought an amendment in the IPC to punish the rapists of minor girls below 12 with death on April 21.

In the first conviction in Madhya Pradesh, a court in Shahdol district had sentenced a 23-year-old man to death on February 28 for raping and killing a four-year-old girl.

Fifty special courts have been set up in the state to conduct trials in rape cases in the state.

Madhya Pradesh accounted for the highest 4,882 rape cases out of 38,947 recorded across the country in 2016, according to the last report of the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB).

The state recorded 2,479 cases of rape of minor girls, followed by Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh with 2,310 and 2,115 such cases respectively, the NCRB report said.

Madhya Pradesh recorded the highest number of rape cases (4,391) in 2015 as well, the report said. - PTI