M A I N   N E W S

Death for rape, murder of daughter
Jatinder Sharma

Rohtak, May 22
The Additional Sessions Judge, Mr Shiva Sharma, has today awarded death sentence to Rewa Singh, resident of Titoli village, near here, for murdering his six-year daughter Pooja.

According to the prosecution, Pooja was first raped by her father Rewa Singh, a soldier in the Indian Army, and then killed her for self-preservation. Later, he dumped her half-naked body in roadside pits on the outskirts of the village.

The prosecution was launched on the basis of a complaint lodged by the accused himself to the police on April 20, 2000, regarding the disappearance of his daughter. Her mother had incidentally gone the day before to her parental house.

According to the prosecution version, Rewa Singh on April 19, under the influence of liquor, lifted Pooja, who was sleeping and laid her on the ground in the courtyard and raped her. When Pooja started weeping, he gagged her with one hand.

Fearing that the girl would disclose everything to her mother and this would bring disrepute to him, Rewa Singh strangulated Pooja to death and threw her body in the pits near the road. He threw the chunni and salwar of Pooja in the ‘gher’ of Kartar Singh. After that he enacted a drama about disappearance of his daughter. The Additional Sessions Judge convicted Rewa Singh to undergo rigorous imprisonment for life under Section 376, IPC (Rape), and a fine of Rs 2000 and in default thereof to undergo further rigorous imprisonment for one year.

For causing the disappearance of evidence of offence or murder and deliberately giving incorrect information to the police and the villagers, the judge convicted Rewa Singh to undergo rigorous imprisonment for five years and also pay a fine of Rs 1000 and in default of payment of fine, to undergo further rigorous imprisonment for six months. All the substantive sentences of imprisonment shall run concurrently.

The Additional Sessions Judge ordered that the condemned person Rewa Singh shall be hanged by the neck till he is dead.

The order said that the condemned person Rewa Singh had been apprised of his right that he must file an appeal against the judgement of conviction and order of sentence within 30 days (vide Article 115(a) of the Limitation Act, 1963) from today.

The judge said that judgement of conviction and order of sentence of death of Rewa Singh accused shall be subject to the confirmation by the high court and shall not be executed till then, as envisaged under Section 366(1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

Earlier, the defence counsel has prayed for mercy on the plea that the convict was an Army personnel, who fought for the honour of the nation during the Kargil war and was in custody from the time of commission of the offence and that his two minor children would be rendered fatherless in case the extreme penalty of death was awarded to him.

Rejecting the defence plea, the Additional Sessions Judge said that succinctly put, this case fell in the category of the rarest of rare cases and mercy to the convict, under these circumstances, would be misplaced and an insult to the humanity, particularly womanhood.

The case in hand was not a simple case of rape and murder. In this case, an Army personnel committed rape upon his own six-year-old daughter and then, for self-preservation, killed the child. The criminality in the convict did not end here. Fearing his exposure and disclosure of the offence, he carried her body and dumped it in roadside pits, totally disregarding values and respect for a human dead body.