New Delhi, February 10
The Supreme Court today sentenced to death a man for rape and murder of a six-year-old school girl from Uttar Pradesh, holding his action as "beastly, barbaric and inhuman".
The convict, Satish Kumar, was acquitted by the Allahabad High Court after being awarded the capital punishment by the trial judge for the August 16, 2001, rape and murder of Vishakha alias Akansha, a student of Sarvodaya Public School in the state.
Holding that the punishment in such cases should be in proportionate to the crime, a Bench of Mr Justice Arijit Pasayat and Mr Justice S.H. Kapadia said "rape is one of the most depraved acts. The iniquitous act becomes abominable when the victim is a child. The diabolic act reaches the lowest level of humanity when the rape is followed by brutal murder."
She was lured by the accused to accompany him on some pretext and three persons had seen him carrying the child on his bicycle from her school to a nearby sugarcane field from where her body was recovered a day after the incident.
Though there was no eyewitness to the crime, but three persons had seen the accused carrying the child on his bicycle before she went missing and the trial judge had convicted him on the basis of "strong
circumstantial" evidence.
Restoring the judgement of Sessions Judge, the Bench said "we have no hesitation in holding that the case at hand falls in the rarest of rare category and death sentence awarded by the trial court was appropriate."
The court said if the punishment in such heinous crimes were not in proportionate to the offence, the consequence would be "serious and widespread" for the society.
