Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court has commuted the death sentence of two men convicted of the gang rape and murder of a five-year-old girl in Jhargram district to life imprisonment without remission for 60 years.
The Division Bench of Justice Debangsu Basak and Justice Md. Shabbar Rashidi upheld the conviction but observed that the possibility of reformation of the convicts had not been conclusively ruled out. According to the prosecution, the minor girl, aged five years and four months, went missing on the morning of November 7, 2021.
Her body was found in an agricultural field two days later based on information provided by the accused. Witnesses testified that she was last seen with one of the appellants. A local shopkeeper said the accused bought a chocolate and a biri from his shop and left with the child. Other witnesses confirmed seeing them proceed toward a nearby field.
The police recovered the victim’s body along with a chocolate wrapper, burnt biri stub and a bamboo stick. A locket bearing the victim’s photograph was recovered from the house of the second appellant.
These recoveries were made based on disclosures by the convicts. The trial court had sentenced the two men to death in June last year after convicting them of rape, murder, kidnapping and destruction of evidence.
The autopsy confirmed aggravated penetrative assault and death due to strangulation. The court noted that a bamboo stick had been forcibly inserted into the child’s private parts, describing the act as one “which shocks the conscience.”
The High Court found the chain of circumstantial evidence complete and the silence of the accused, under criminal procedure, as strengthening the prosecution’s case. It ruled that the charges had been proved beyond reasonable doubt.
While the conviction was upheld, the court did not find it to be a “rarest of rare” case warranting the death penalty. The Bench said that the option of life imprisonment must only be rejected when there is no possibility of reformation.
The court ruled that the gravity of the offence warranted a sentence that reflected both punishment and deterrence. The Bench noted that although the crime was brutal, the state had not established that reformation was impossible.
Both convicts were directed to serve 60 years without remission and instructed correctional authorities to update prison records accordingly.