INDIA: SC UPHOLDS DEATH FOR CHILD RAPIST AND MURDERER

February 29, 2012: In India, the Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence awarded to a man who raped and killed a three-year-old girl in Maharashtra's Amrawati district in 2007.
A bench of justices A K Patnaik and Swatanter Kumar held that Rajendra Pralhadrao Wasnik deserved capital punishment as he was a married man of 31 years who committed the offence on the pretext of buying the girl biscuits.
"First and foremost is that the crime committed by the accused is heinous. In fact, it is not heinous simplicitor, but is a brutal and inhuman crime where a married person, aged 31 years, chooses to lure a three-year-old minor girl child on the pretext of buying her biscuits and then commits rape on her. "Further, obviously intending to destroy the entire evidence and the possibility of being identified, he kills the minor child," Justice Kumar writing the judgement said.
The apex court said on the basis of the 'last seen together' theory and other direct and circumstantial evidence, the prosecution has been able to establish its case beyond any reasonable doubt.
"It can hardly be even imagined that what torture and brutality the minor child must have faced during the course of commission of this crime. "All her private parts were swollen and bleeding. She was bleeding through her nose and mouth," the apex court said.
"We find that the learned trial court was fully justified in law and on the facts of the present case, in awarding the extreme penalty of death for an offence under Section 302 IPC along with other punishments for other offences. "We find no justifiable reason to interfere with the judgement of conviction and order of sentence under the impugned judgement," the apex court said. (Sources: PTI, 29/02/2012)