A court in Gujarat on Monday sentenced a man to death for raping and murdering a woman and her 11-year-old daughter in 2018, a case that had triggered national outrage. His accomplice was given life imprisonment on the charge of murder.
Harsh Sahay Gurjar was sentenced to death and Hariom Gurjar was given life in jail by the special POCSO court of Additional Sessions Judge AH Dhamani.
The court also directed the Gujarat government to pay Rs 7.50 lakh compensation jointly to the fathers of the woman and the girl, special public prosecutor PN Parmar said.
As per police, the woman and her daughter were sexually assaulted before being killed by Harsh, who had brought them from Rajasthan to work at a construction site where they stayed.
Harsh killed the woman as she was insisting that he take her and her daughter to his house. He dumped her body, took the girl home and raped her for 10 days before murdering her, the prosecution said.
The body of the girl was found near a playground in the Pandesara area with 78 injury marks on April 6, 2018, three days before the woman's corpse was found. The two were identified as mother and daughter with the help of DNA tests.
Harsh and Hariom were held from Rajasthan after a probe that began to ascertain details of a black car that was caught in a CCTV camera close to the site where the girl's body was dumped.
Harsh was sentenced to death under Indian Penal Code section 302 (Punishment for murder), while he got life imprisonment under section 376 (2) (rape), and seven years under section 201 for causing disappearance of evidence, the special PP said.
Hariom was given life imprisonment for murder and 10 years in jail under IPC section 364 for kidnapping, he said, adding the sentences will run concurrently.
The two were also charged under relevant sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
Parmar said the court took into account 43 witnesses, including the confessional statement of the co-accused and others who saw them taking the woman from the construction site.
