Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court has commuted the death sentence awarded to a construction site worker convicted of murdering a six-year-old girl in 2019, while acquitting him of rape charges for want of conclusive medical evidence.
The trial court had sentenced the man to death in December 2023 after finding him guilty under provisions of the IPC and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
On appeal, a Division Bench of Justices Debangsu Basak and Md. Shabbar Rashidi upheld his conviction for murder, kidnapping, wrongful confinement and destruction of evidence but ruled that the prosecution had failed to establish the charge of rape.
The child went missing on July 15, 2019, and her body was recovered six days later from within a walled project site at Kheyadaha, where the accused worked. Witnesses testified that he was last seen taking the girl away from near her home. When the child’s mother later confronted him inside the site, he claimed she had gone back home, before fleeing from the spot.
The victim’s identity was confirmed by her mother, who identified clothing recovered with the body. Autopsy reports established homicidal death, though the decomposed state of the body meant that forensic tests could not generate a DNA profile.
The court noted several incriminating circumstances against the accused. A button recovered from the scene matched a missing button from his T-shirt, which was later recovered at his instance. Doctors who examined him on July 21 found fresh abrasions on his knees and chest. As the accused offered no explanation for these injuries in his statement, the judges drew an adverse inference.
The court also observed that an alleged confession made before the doctor while in custody was legally inadmissible.
Holding that the chain of circumstances—last seen together, false statement to the mother, flight, material recoveries and unexplained injuries—proved his guilt, the Bench sustained the convictions related to kidnapping, confinement, murder and destruction of evidence.
On sentencing, however, the judges ruled that the case did not fall in the “rarest of rare” category. Taking into account his age, background and potential for reform, his death penalty was commuted to life imprisonment. The court directed that records be sent back and correctional home authorities informed of the commutation.