Odisha POCSO court awards death penalty to two in rape-murder case

(Representational Image)


A special court in Jagatsinghpur, on Tuesday, ordered death sentence to two persons after convicting the duo for raping and killing of an 8-year-old girl a couple of years back.
The convicts, Asif (34) and Akil (33), had committed the crime on 21 August in 2014 at a village under Tirtol  police station of the coastal district of Jagatsinghpur.
The culprits had kidnapped the victim as she was way on her way back home after purchasing chocolates from a shop.  When she tried to raise alarm, they gagged and gangraped her in an abandoned house near the village and killed her to destroy the evidence.
The POCSO court judge Ajay Kumar Mohanty convicted the duo after confirming the reports of 27 witnesses apart from police and doctors.
As it came under the ‘rarest of rare’ category of crimes, the court awarded capital punishment of the convicts, said Dolagobinda Dash, the special public prosecutor of the court.