20-year-old man given death penalty for rape and murder of girl in Ghaziabad - Hindustan Times
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20-year-old man given death penalty for rape and murder of girl in Ghaziabad

Feb 05, 2023 12:28 AM IST

A Ghaziabad court on Saturday awarded death penalty to a 20-year-old convicted in the gruesome sexual assault and murder of a four-year-old girl in December last year, saying that the crime fits the “rarest of rare” category

A Ghaziabad court on Saturday awarded death penalty to a 20-year-old convicted in the gruesome sexual assault and murder of a four-year-old girl in December last year, saying that the crime fits the “rarest of rare” category.

Ghaziabad, India - Febuary 04, 2023: Ghaziabad While terming the case as rarest or rare, a Ghaziabad court awarded death penalty to convict Sonu Gupta, 20, in a case of abduction, rape and murder of a four-year-old girl in Sahibabad in Ghaziabad , India on Saturday, Febuary 04. 2022. (Photo by Sakib Ali /Hindustan Times)
Ghaziabad, India - Febuary 04, 2023: Ghaziabad While terming the case as rarest or rare, a Ghaziabad court awarded death penalty to convict Sonu Gupta, 20, in a case of abduction, rape and murder of a four-year-old girl in Sahibabad in Ghaziabad , India on Saturday, Febuary 04. 2022. (Photo by Sakib Ali /Hindustan Times)

On December 1 last year, the body of the minor was recovered in semi-naked condition from a forest in Sahibabad, a day after she went missing. On December 7, police arrested the accused from his house in Nandgram.

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The court in its order stated that the girl was strangled by convict Sonu Gupta“using her undergarment” and he also stuffed her mouth with a dumped diaper.

“The accused murdered the innocent girl in a gruesome manner. The accused inserted a diaper in her mouth and used her undergarment to strangle her. It is shattering to imagine what the girl went through at that time. The accused had time span from the time when he abducted the girl to the time he performed the crime. Still, he showed no mercy and this shows his deep criminal mentality/mental state...,” the court said in its order.

“The behaviour of the accused was cruel and barbaric against the victim and the manner in which the crime was committed makes it fit case for rarest of rare category... Accused Sonu Gupta under provision 6 of the Pocso (Prevention of sexual offences against children) Act and IPC 302 (murder) is awarded death penalty. The accused is to be hanged till death,” read the court order by special judge (Pocso) Amit Kumar Prajapati.

According to the postmortem examination report, the deceased sustained severe injuries due to the assault, Dr Prachi Pal, one of the doctors in the administration-appointed autopsy panel, told the court. The autopsy findings had confirmed rape and strangulation as the cause of death.

In its charge sheet filed on December 15, 2022, police framed charges of abduction, rape, murder and destruction of evidence under sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against the convict, and provisions of the Pocso Act. Additional provisions of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act were also levied.

The court order, however, said that the prosecution could not prove the charges under the SC/ST Act against Gupta, while stating that the crime was not committed just because the victim belonged to the SC community.

“Police filed a charge sheet on December 15, 2022 and after the speedy trial the man was awarded death penalty. The entire case was purely circumstantial and supported by forensic evidence,” Diksha Sharma, deputy commissioner of police (trans-Hindon), said on Saturday.

The father of the deceased said that while the family suffered serious trauma, the death penalty granted to the accused gave consolation to them.

“Although our damage is irreparable there is some consolation that the convict is given death penalty. I have two other children left with me and we have restricted their movement ever since the incident with my daughter,” he said.

The victim was a kindergarten student at the time of the crime.

“We are trying hard to overcome the incident... I last saw her about 15 minutes before she went missing on the day of incident. She was urging me to take her along on my bike. But I said that I had some work and did not take her along. This is the only regret I have. Had I taken her along, she would have been alive,” he said.

The convict used to work as a daily wager in a packaging factory in Ghaziabad.

Reacting to the court order, the convict’s father alleged that Gupta was implicated by the police. “We are a poor family and have no means to hire a lawyer to defend my son. He seems to be implicated by police just because he was roaming around in the girl’s locality on the day of the incident. He was given an amicus curiae during the trial. I am clueless about the legal procedures, and by the time we could get the details of the case, the trial was over,” said the father, Shiv Gupta.

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  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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    Peeyush Khandelwal writes on a range of issues in western Uttar Pradesh – from crime, to development authorities and from infrastructure to transport. Based in Ghaziabad, he has been a journalist for almost a decade.

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