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CHANDIGARH: Punjab and Haryana high court has ordered that a man convicted of raping and murdering a five-year-old girl remain behind bars for 30 years without remission, holding that his incarceration must continue until he nears loss of “virility” to prevent further sexual crimes.”To save other children and women, the convict must remain within the four walls of the prison until he is closer to the sunset of his virility,” a division bench of Justices Anoop Chitkara and Sukhvinder Kaur ordered after commuting the convict’s death sentence.The case dates to May 31, 2018, when the child was raped and stabbed to death in a village in Haryana’s Palwal district by the man, who was a long-time employee of her father. Her body was stuffed into a flour storage drum in the courtyard of his house. CCTV footage from a nearby school showed him leading the child towards his home. He was convicted of kidnapping, rape, murder, criminal conspiracy, and destruction of evidence IPC and Pocso Act, and sentenced to death.He appealed in HC, which upheld his conviction but spared him the gallows and acquitted his mother of the charge of shielding him.”In a civilised society, this barbaric incident would not have happened, and if it did, a mother would have preferred justice for ‘Laado’ (the name given to victim by the court) than for her ‘Raja-beta’,” the bench observed, adding: “This social attitude, however appalling, is not new. It is deeply embedded in the region’s patriarchal mindset and culture.”HC was of the view that to be proportionate, any sentence must be stable and balanced like a table, and for any table to be stable, all its legs must be comparable. Thus, the courts, while awarding a sentence, are under an obligation to consider the crime, victim, criminal and his family, society and the state, the bench observed. HC observed that the facts on record indicate a gruesome crime because ‘Laado’ was walking with the convict, swaying one hand and letting the convict hold her other hand in absolute trust, “without the mental age or information to suspect the probable evil of a devil”.However, the convict has no criminal antecedents, and his conduct in prison is not violative, which makes reformation possible, HC observed. “Considering the victim’s age to be 5 years and 7 months, we are convinced to impose a sentence of 30 years, without remission… The fine is enhanced to Rs 30 lakh,” HC ruled. Go to Source
