Uttarakhand man sentenced to death for rape-murder of Dalit girl, 8, in UP

BAREILLY: Terming the rape and murder of an eight-year-old Dalit girl in 2021 as ‘rarest of rare’, a special Pocso court in UP’s Budaun on Friday awarded death sentence to a 32-year-old man after finding him guilty of the crime. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 2 lakh on the convict.

Additional district government counsel Atul Singh said, “Convict Gufran Ahmad, a resident of Uttarakhand’s Udham Singh Nagar district, is unmarried and used to work as a mechanic. He pretended that he was mentally ill at the time of the crime, but the court found that his condition was normal based on his medical report. Judge Deepak Yadav ordered the accused to be hanged till death while giving the reference of Delhi’s Nirbhaya case.” According to police, on April 11, 2021, the girl was raped and murdered 400 m away from a field where her parents were harvesting wheat at a village in Civil Lines area of Budaun. Gufran, who was in an inebriated state at that time, was caught on the spot and handed over to the police. An FIR was registered against him under IPC sections 363 (abduction), 376 AB (rape on a woman less than 12 years of age), and 302 (murder) along with the Pocso and SC/ST Acts.

Advocate Amol Jauhari, who was appointed as special public prosecutor in this case along with advocate Virendra Verma, said, “The family of the accused refused to defend the case, and he was provided a defence counsel by the court. Based on the statements of the witnesses, the court found that the accused had brutally raped the victim after finding her alone and smothered her to death while attempting to prevent her from screaming.”

The doctor who conducted the autopsy confirmed multiple deep injuries on the victim’s body, including private parts. “Though the DNA reports of the accused did not match due to some technical issues, the circumstantial evidence and the statement of the victim’s mother, who was an eyewitness in the case, proved sufficient for conviction.” Jauhari added, “The sections of SC/ST Act and abduction were dropped , but he was found guilty under sections of rape, murder and Pocso Act. He is lodged in Budaun district jail.”

Courtesy: TOI

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source: www.justicenews.co.in