Carpenter gets life term for murder

FARIDKOT: A sessions court has awarded life term in jail to Satnam Singh, 23, a carpenter for kidnapping, sodomising ad murdering a 11-year-old boy, Husanpreet, son of a doctor in September 2012.

The police had recovered the boy’s body from a Rajbaha (subcanal) near Bariwala village in Muktsar district a day after he was kidnapped.

When he committed the crime, the convict, who had studied till Class 10, was 19, and had worked at the boy’s house on an errand. He had kidnapped the Class-6 student, son of Dr Harnarayan Singh Dhunna of Kotkapura, from outside his house near Jyoti Model School on September 10 (a Monday). He is believed to have first lured the child with the promise of buying him a treat and a cell phone.

Later, he tried to sodomise the child and on facing resistance, murdered the child. He had tried to mislead the police by also calling up for a ransom of Rs 1 lakh.

In its investigation, the police had claimed that Satnam was a habitual sex offender.

He had been booked under Sections 302 (murder), 365 (kidnapping or abducting with intent secretly and wrongfully to confine person), 387 (putting person in fear of death or of grievous hurt, in order to commit extortion) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence) of the Indian Penal Code.