HC sets aside death sentence of three rape, murder accused

The court also asked the State government to provide Rs 5 lakh compensation to the girl’s mother within a span of three months.

A division Bench of Justices PN Prakash and B Pugalendhi observed that the case was predicated on circumstantial evidence, but there’s no scientific evidence to connect the accused with the crime. Evidences of witnesses did not inspire the confidence of this court to impose such a huge criminal liability on the accused, said the court.

There should be some minimum satisfactory evidence, which is too fragile in this case to confirm the conviction, much less to uphold the death sentence. Hence, the prosecution has failed to prove charges against the accused, though it was apparent that the heinous crime was committed onthe hapless girl.

According to the prosecution, the 10-year-old girl was gang raped and murdered by the trio. The incident took place at 4.30 pm on December 1, 2014. When the girl was walking alone near her house at Kamatchipuram, sources said that the three accused gagged the girl, who lost her consciousness, and gang raped her. After committing the crime, the accused dumped the body of the victim in a well near Kamatchipuram.

While a missing case was filed initially, the case was altered to Section 302 (murder) of the IPC and Section 6 of the Pocso Act, 2012. After a detailed investigation, three persons were arrested on December 4, 2014 and lodged in Madurai Central Prison. Based on the evidence provided by the police, Theni fast track mahila court Judge V Thilagam convicted and awarded death sentence to the trio on October 4. According to the prosecution, the trio identified as P Sundarraj (25) of Ambedkar Colony, Kamatchipuram, E Robin alias Ravi (23) and P Kumaresan (19), were found guilty of raping the girl before murdering her.