Jamshedpur: Life imprisonment for one in minor’s rape-murder, two get jail terms
The other two convicted co-accused were sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for 10 years and seven years, respectively, Ramesh Narayan Tiwari, public prosecutor (PP), said on Monday.
A special Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) court on Monday sentenced one of the three convicts to life imprisonment till death in the gang-rape, murder and beheading of a three-year-old baby girl after abducting her from Tatanagar railway station at night on July 25, 2019.
The other two convicted co-accused were sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for 10 years and seven years, respectively, Ramesh Narayan Tiwari, public prosecutor (PP), said on Monday.
“The Pocso court of additional district judge-5, Subhas, convicted Rinku Sahu (37), to life imprisonment till death, while co-convicts Md Sheikh alias Monu Mandal and Kailash Kumar for 10 and seven years of rigorous imprisonment, respectively. Rinku, Sheikh and Kumar have been fined Rs90,000, Rs20,000 and Rs10,000, respectively,” said Tiwari.
“We had prayed for the death sentence while arguing that this was a rarest of rare crime. The prosecution will move a petition on behalf of the state government for enhancement of the punishment before the Jharkhand high court (HC) under relevant provisions of the criminal procedure code (CrPc),” added Tiwari.
Vidya Singh, Jolly Das and the district legal service authority (DLSA) panel’s lawyer Kamal Kant Sinha represented the three convicts.
The court announced the quantum of punishments via video-conference on Monday on completion of a fast-track hearing in 11 months during which 20 witnesses were examined.
Tatanagar railway police authorities had submitted a 245-page charge sheet against the accused following a probe led by the then Jamshedpur railway superintendent of police (SP), Ehtesham Waquarib.
On July 29, 2019, Sahu was arrested on the basis of closed-circuit TV (CCTV) footage, which showed him carrying the victim on his shoulder at night on July 25.
Sahu, a father of two sons and a daughter, had abducted the baby girl from Tatanagar railway station while she was asleep with her mother (26) and her lover, Md Sheikh alias Monu Mandal.
Sahu’s other accomplice, Kumar, was arrested in the morning on July 30. The trio confessed to their crime during interrogation by Waquarib and his team.
Earlier, Sahu was accused of two more cases of child-lifting and had also served a two-year jail term for the abduction of a seven-year-old boy with an intention to kill him in 2015.