Cuttack, July 12: Orissa High Court has set aside the death sentence awarded to five persons by a lower court in a case of rape and murder of a minor girl that took place in Barbil about five years ago.

The high court acquitted three of them of all charges and commuted death sentence to life imprisonment without remission for 35 years in the case of the other two convicts.

The incident occurred at Barbil on August 1, 2012, when the body of a 13-year-old girl was found in the Bagiahudi jungle. Her mouth was gagged with a piece of cloth and her body bore various injury marks. It was later revealed that the minor girl was gang-raped before being killed while she was returning home from tuition. She was a student of Class VIII.

Court of Additional Sessions Judge, Champua, convicted five persons - Biswanath Gope, Mangal Purty, Mata Munda, Jiten Munda and Harjeet Singh - in the case and awarded death sentence to them on November 21, 2015.

While the death sentences by the trial court was sent to the high court for confirmation, all the five convicts challenged the sentence.

Disposing of the death reference cases along with the criminal appeals, the high court declined to accept that the case could be called as the "rarest of rare case" warranting death penalty. "We are not satisfied (with the argument) that the circumstances of the crime are such that there cannot be any other alternative than to impose capital punishment," the division bench of Indrajit Mahanty and Biswajit Mohanty ruled in its June 23 order.

The high court set aside the death sentence awarded to Biswanath, Mangal and Harjeet and acquitted them of all charges. The high court held that the trio could not be held guilty for committing any offences as "the evidence is deficient" in respect to them.

With regard to Mata Munda and Jiten Munda, the court upheld their conviction in the rape and murder case as it found "circumstances exist showing their complicity in committing offences". However, it commuted their death sentence. "We set aside the death sentence awarded to Mata Munda and Jiten Munda and instead direct them to undergo life imprisonment with the condition of minimum of 35 years in jail without remission," the bench said.