Mumbai: A special POCSO court on Tuesday convicted a 31-year-old man for raping and killing a 9-year-old girl at Nehru Nagar in Juhu in 2019 – barely eight months after he was released from jail after serving a seven-year term for sexually assaulting a minor. The court is likely to announce the sentence on June 2.
According to the prosecution, the incident took place on April 4, 2019, at about 6 pm, when the minor went out to get a cup of tea from a nearby tea stall for her mother, who was recently operated upon and was recuperating at home.
The prosecution claimed that the accused met her on the way and took her to an abandoned house where he sexually assaulted and killed the child. He left the spot immediately after the incident and came back at 2 am when he put the body in a gunny bag and dumped it in the septic tank of a nearby public toilet.
The child’s parents began looking for her after she did not return home for a long time and eventually approached the Juhu police. During the probe, locals informed police that they had seen the convict take the girl behind a nearby temple.
The prosecution had relied on the CCTV footage from the temple wherein he was captured taking a gunny bag with him.
The defence had claimed that the girl had died due to drowning in the septic tank. The special court, however, refused to accept the claim. “The death of the girl was due to head injury and not because of drowning, as alleged by the defence,” said the special POCSO court, convicting the 31-year-old.
“It is proved that this was a second case wherein the accused had been found guilty of sexually abusing a minor girl. In the present case it has been proved that the girl was murdered,” the court said, adding that it will hear both the sides on June 2 on the quantum of punishment to the convict.
Special public prosecutor Vaibhav Baghade highlighted that the accused committed the gruesome offence barely eight months after he was released from jail, where he was serving a prison term for sexually assaulting a minor girl.
Baghade said in August 2013 the convict was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for sexually assaulting another nine-year-old girl from the locality and came out of jail in August 2018. The prosecutor said he had earned some remission and came out of jail before the actual prison term of seven years was completed.
