Keonjhar: Relying on witness evidence deposition of a five-year-old boy, a district court here has convicted a 26-year-old man to lifer for the murder of an eight-year-old minor girl four years ago.

Keonjhar additional district & sessions judge Jyotirmayee Acharya pronounced the verdict in the sensational murder case and sentenced the assailant Paresh Munda to life imprisonment on Wednesday.

The gruesome murder of the eight-year-old tribal girl - Suryamanee Munda - had sparked off outrage in the remote forest-side Upper Rayigada village in Nayakote police station limits of the district.

In a case of revenge killing, the accused Paresh, who had a long-standing feud with Suryamanee's family, waylaid the girl and beheaded her with an axe. Later he had cut the body into pieces, stashed the mutilated body in her clothes and dumped it in the forest areas, the investigating officer Bijoy Kumar Behari said.

Investigation had reached the dead end and police were clueless. However, the murder was cracked when a five-year-old boy, who was witness to the crime, had divulged the incident to his mother. The woman took her son to the police station, where the child described the crime in graphic details.

The child's confessional statement was recorded in the presence of a magistrate. This deposition led to the conviction of the assailant, the investigating official said.

While adjudicating the case, the additional district and sessions judge pronounced life imprisonment for the convict on the basis of circumstantial evidence.

The boy's eyewitness deposition largely paved the way for the assailant's conviction, said public prosecutor Prafulla Kumar Patra.

Seventeen witnesses were cross-examined during the course of the trial. All had corroborated with the charge sheet filed by the police, Patra said.