Samir Bhowmik. (PTI)

Agartala, June 3: A Tripura court today handed death sentence to the youth who raped and murdered seven-year-old Debjani Dutta over two years ago.

The verdict brings the curtain down on a trial that gained in intensity after a similar judgment against two persons who had raped and killed another Tripura girl, Barnali Deb.

The death penalty against 24-year-old Samir Bhowmik is only the fourth announced by a sessions court in Tripura in five decades.

Pronouncing the judgment ? it ran into 100-odd pages ? additional district and sessions judge Subhash Bhattacharya said the rape and murder of Debjani, whose pet name was Puja, was in the category of “rarest of rare” crimes and the guilty deserved nothing less than capital punishment.

He said Bhowmik would be hanged to death, subject to confirmation of the ruling by the Agartala bench of Gauhati High Court.

When the judge asked him whether he had anything to say, the youth said: “Sir, I cannot hear you.”

An unfazed Bhowmik then asked the police official standing next to the box what the judge had said, but he looked away.

The judgment was greeted by cries of jubilation from the people who had assembled on the lawns of the sessions court.

Debjani’s father Keshav Dutta was lost for words. On regaining his composure, he said: “I am happy today and my faith in the judiciary has gone up. I believe the people’s faith in the law will be strengthened, too.”

Special public prosecutor Dhiraj Guha said he did not subscribe to the idea of capital punishment, but could not help but applaud the judgment because the crime was a heinous one.

“I do not suppose capital punishment is the solution but we have to function within the parameters of the law. In the given case, capital punishment was inescapable,” Guha said.

Debjani was raped and killed on December 11, 2002. The only daughter of Keshav and Asmita Dutta was playing outside their home when Bhowmik, who had set up a studio in the portion of the house rented out to him, lured her into the darkroom.

The youth confessed to the police that he had strangled the girl after forcing himself on her.

Debjani’s body was found inside a plywood box at Charilam, under Bishalgarh subdivision, the next day. The box also contained a piece of the lungi Bhowmik was wearing when he committed the crime.