A special court in Rajasthan on Friday gave death penalty to a 25-year-old man - convicted in rape and murder of a child - nearly a month after the incident was reported.
A special POCSO court in Nagaur district's Merta city awarded the death penalty to the man after convicting him of raping and killing a seven-year-old girl on September 20 this year in a village under the Padukalan police station in the district.
Special Judge Rekha Rathore sentenced the convict Dinesh Jat, a maternal uncle of the victim, terming his offence as "the rarest of rare" after holding the trial continuously for 11 days, Special Public Prosecutor Sumer Singh said.
Earlier on October 5, a Jaipur court had sentenced a 25-year-old man to 20 years in jail for raping a 9-year-old girl, imposing the punishment within nine days of the commission of the crime.
Setting a benchmark on the swiftness of the delivery of the verdict that, experts say, also enhances the deterrence value of the punishment, the special Jaipur POCSO court, had decided the case within five working days after filing of the charge sheet by the police in barely 18 hours.
Additional Sessions Judge Rathore held the continuous trial after the Nagaur police completed the probe into the case in six days and filed the charge sheet on September 27, said SPP Singh.
During the trial, the ASJ examined 29 prosecution witnesses while the defence was able to put up only one witness in defence of accused Jat, he said.
The court, however, dismissed the defence witness' deposition claiming accused Jat to be suffering from a mental disability as it found the accused to be fully mentally fit, said Mr Singh.
According to the prosecution, the girl's maternal uncle had on September 20 lured her to an agriculture farm, where he raped her and fearing that she might disclose the incident to other family members, had killed her and dumped her body behind bushes.
On a complaint lodged by the girl's mother, police managed to recover the victim's body and arrest Dinesh Jat the same day.
Expediting the investigation into the case, police filed the charge sheet in just six days in the POCSO Court.
Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot too welcomed the prompt court decision and swift police probe into the case.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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