Patna: A special Pocso court in Gopalganj on Saturday awarded death sentence to a man accused of killing a 16-year-old girl after abducting and raping her about nine months ago.
Additional district and sessions judge-I, Gopalganj, Bharat Tiwari found Ajit Kumar guilty of kidnapping, raping and murdering Simran Naj, a resident of Pipra village under the Manjha police station in Gopalganj district.
The court held Ajit guilty under Sections 363, 366, 376, 306, 114 of IPC and different sections of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act 2012. However, Ajit's brother Vishal and another accused Govind Prasad alias Govinda, a resident of Karnapura village in Gopalganj, are still at large.
According to the prosecution, Simran had gone missing from her house on the night of March 9 last year. Her family inquired about her from all their relatives but she could not be traced. Finally, her father Amir Hamja lodged a kidnapping case with the Manjha police station of the district.
On March 20, Amir received information from Manjha police station that her daughter's half-burnt body had been found from a house in Yashoda Colony under the jurisdiction of Makarpur police station in Vadodara district of Gujarat. When the father went to Vadodara, he was shocked to find his daughter dead. Simran was set on fire allegedly by Ajit in the house on the night of March 19, 2017.
Vadodara police handed over her body to her family after post-mortem. Autopsy report revealed the girl was sexually assaulted before being murdered.
Ajit was staying in a rented house ever since he allegedly kidnapped Simran. Manjha police submitted a charge-sheet against the three accused on June 28 last year.
The public prosecutor in Pocso court, Daroga Singh, said the prosecution had pleaded for maximum punishment. The court awarded capital punishment holding that this was the rarest of rare cases and the accused deserved the maximum punishment.
Defence counsel Prabhu Nath Singh said he would appeal in the high court against the verdict of the lower court.
