Man gets death sentence for rape, murder of minor in Gujarat’s Vapi

SURAT: A 22-year-old man was convicted and sentenced to death by a special court under the Protection of Children From Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act — for the rape and murder of a nine-year-old girl in February 2020 in Vapi of Gujarat's Valsad district — on Monday .
The minor was found hanging in her home and the accused attempted to stage a scene of a suicide.
However, the postmortem examination and police investigation proved that she was sexually assaulted, sodomised and then strangled to death.
The court of special judge for POCSO cases, K J Modi, convicted and sentenced Pradip Rajesh alias Rajendra alias Rameshwar Gupta, a labourer and native of Bihar, to be hanged till death for rape and murder of the minor.
The court ordered compensation of Rs 17 lakh to be paid to the family of the deceased girl.
Gupta sexually assaulted the minor, a class IV student, when she was alone at her home in Vapi on February 7, 2020.
She was found hanging from the ceiling fan with a dupatta in the afternoon.
Police suspected it to be a murder when they noticed injury marks on her neck.
"It was later confirmed by doctors in a preliminary examination during postmortem that she was strangulated. Further medical examination revealed that she was sexually assaulted and subjected to unnatural sex as well," said Anil Tripathi, district government pleader, Valsad.
(The victim's identity has not been revealed to protect her privacy as per Supreme Court directives on cases related to sexual assault.)