42-year-old man sentenced to death for rape, murder of 6-yr-old girl in Punjab

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A court in Punjab's Mansa district today awarded death sentence to a man in connection with the rape and murder of a six-year-old girl in 2016, describing the case as "rarest of rare". The court of Additional Session Judge Jaspal Verma held accused Kala Ram alias Kala Singh guilty of the abduction, rape, and murder of the girl in the year 2016, said Jaswant Singh Grewal, the victim's counsel. The judge observed in the order that the faith of the society by such a "barbaric act" of the convict gets totally shaken and its cry for justice becomes loud and clear.

"The offence was not only inhumane and barbaric but it was a totally ruthless crime of rape followed by cold-blooded murder. It is an act of taking advantage of absolute innocence. The sexually assaulted minor girl of six years could not have shown any kind of resistance. The rape of minor girl child is nothing but a monstrous burial of her dignity in the darkness," the judge wrote in the order.

"It is held that it is one of the rarest of rare cases in which the convict must meet the gallows. Hence, he is sentenced to death under section 376 A of the IPC for committing rape and murder of the minor girl," the order stated. Ram, who was a distant relative of the victim, had come to Amapur Mandira village in Mansa district to attend a marriage function in May 2016.

On May 11, 2016, Ram, a resident of Rupanwali village in Fatehabad district of Haryana, first kidnapped the girl from the marriage function and then took her to a nearby canal, where he raped her and then strangulated her to death, said the counsel. Ram, a daily wager, was later arrested after some relatives told police that he was last seen with the victim. Grewal said the accused, who was 40 years old at the time of the crime, had admitted in his confessional statement that he had killed the girl after raping her.

He was booked under relevant sections of the IPC, including Section 364 (kidnapping), 376 A (punishment for rape and death), 302 (murder) and under provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

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