Chennai: The Madurai bench of Madras High Court on Wednesday awarded a death sentence to an accused who sexually assaulted and murdered a 7-year-old girl in Pudukottai in 2020.
The case came up for hearing on Wednesday before the division bench of Justices S Vaidyanathan and G Jayachandran who said that there was no infirmity in the conviction order passed by the Pudukottai Mahila Court.
On the trace of the crime, the bench said, the accused M Samivel alias Raja was seen with the girl and his dress which was recovered from his home was strained with the girl's blood. Further, his suspicious conduct and his failure to prove his innocence have confirmed that he has committed the crime, the judges observed.
The bench said, no other sentence except death would be adequate due to the brutality of the attack and the barbaric manner in which the child was murdered and the mental agony suffered by the parents.
If a person like Raja was allowed to survive then he would pollute the minds of the other prisoners, the bench said.
On December 29, 2020, the Mahila Court in Pudukottai sentenced Raja to death for the brutal sexual assault and murder of the seven-year-old child that year.
Raja allegedly took the child to a secluded place and had aggravated penetrative sexual assault. He then reportedly inflicted injuries and bone-deep wounds on the head, neck, face, abdomen, thighs and private parts of the kid. He had also attacked the child with a stick and hit her against a tree. Later, the man threw her body into a dried pond and had covered with bushes on June 30, 2020.