High Court commutes death sentence in 2013 rape & murder of minor
Kolkata: Citing impoverished economic background and absence of prior criminal history, Calcutta High Court has commuted the death sentence of a convict to life imprisonment for the rape and murder of a two-and-a-half-year-old girl in the Hastings area of Kolkata in 2013.
A Division Bench comprising Justice Debangsu Basak and Justice Md. Shabbar Rashidi delivered the judgment. The appeal was against the verdict of the Chief Judge, City Sessions Court, Calcutta, which on March 26, 2019, had convicted Suresh Paswan under Sections 364, 376A and 302 of the IPC and Section 6 of the POCSO Act.
The incident occurred on the night of July 20-21, 2013. The victim was reported missing while sleeping with her grandmother beneath the Hastings flyover.
Her body was found the next morning in a drain near the Royal Calcutta Turf Club (RCTC). The autopsy conducted on July 21, 2013, recorded multiple injuries, including those consistent with manual strangulation and sexual assault.
As many as 32 prosecution witnesses were examined during the trial. Several local residents and passersby testified to seeing the accused in the vicinity during the night. Two witnesses identified Paswan carrying a child in his arms near the scene of the incident. The victim’s garments were later recovered based on a statement made by the accused during police custody.
Paswan, employed as a caretaker at the RCTC stables, fled Kolkata after the incident. He was arrested from Vaishali, Bihar, with a Sealdah-Hajipur train ticket dated July 21, 2013, found in his possession. Attendance records from the stable confirmed his absence starting from the date of the incident.
While confirming the conviction, the High Court took note of medical, forensic and circumstantial evidence. The court held that while the conviction was sustainable, mitigating circumstances, including the convict’s mental capacity and socio-economic background, warranted commutation of the death penalty to life imprisonment.
