A Kolkata court gave Rajib Ghosh a death sentence for raping and attempting to kill a seven-month-old child.
Judge Indrila Mukhopadhyay Mitra said , reading out the verdict, “This is a rarest of rare cases. There cannot be any other punishment that the court can think of.”
On Tuesday, a special POCSO court in Kolkata found a man guilty of raping and attempting to kill a seven-month-old child in north Kolkata and sentenced him to hang.
The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) court in Bankshall found the man guilty on Monday of kidnapping, raping, and attempting to kill a toddler from the Burtolla neighborhood of the city within 75 days of his detention.
Death Penalty under POSCO Act
After hearing the final submissions from the defense counsel and the public prosecutor representing the state, the court announced the sentence.
The prosecutor had requested the death penalty, arguing that the crime was one of the ‘rarest of the rare’ cases.
The convict, Rajib Ghosh, was found guilty by Judge Indrila Mukherjee under multiple sections of the Indian Penal Code 65 (2), 140 (4), 137 (2), and 118 along Section 6 of the POCSO Act.
Experts and Lawyers opinions about death penalty
Legal experts pointed out that the penalty in such cases ranged from 20 years behind bars to life imprisonment and even death. The judge chose the death penalty, reasoning that the abuse of the seven-month-old girl was extremely rare.
Special public prosecutor Bivas Chatterjee sought death pentaly for the accused.“The defense lawyer argued that the accused was young and has elderly parents at home. To counter that argument , we cited several Supreme Court rulings, Chatterjee said.
Nirbhaya case: Death penalty served after 7 years
The courts applied the death penalty to the rapists in the notable 2012 Nirbhaya case (the Delhi gang rape case), sparking protests and igniting conversations about the death sentence for rape across the country.
The Indian Penal Code (IPC) permits the death sentence under Section 376A (for inflicting death or a vegetative state of the victim) or Section 376E (for repeat offenders) in situations of rape that results in death or extreme violence.
Nevertheless, even with these clauses, rape trials seldom end in the death penalty; instead, life in prison is the norm.
