Death sentence for serial sex offender

MUMBAI: A 31-year-old man was sentenced to death on Friday for raping and killing a 9-year-old girl in Juhu in April 2019, barely eleven months after he came out of jail after serving a seven-year term for sexually assaulting another nine-yearold girl.

Special judge Harsha Chetan Shende of the POCSO court took serious note of the fact that the convict had spent five years in jail for sexually assaulting another nine-year-old girl in 2012. “He came out of jail on May 9, 2018 and, in less than a year, on April 4, 2019, he again committed the same horrendous crime. To destroy evidence, this time he killed the hapless girl in a horrible, spinechilling and filthy manner,” said the judge. After killing the child, he dumped the body in the septic tank of a nearby public toilet.

The judge said the convict

HC Shende,

was a threat to society and likely to commit similar offence again, if allowed to return back to society. The court also noted that the CCTV footage, collected by the police, showed that on the day of the incident, “The innocent girl stepped out to get a cup of tea in her school uniform and was taken away by the accused to fulfil his lust and he killed her after satisfying his moments of pleasure”.

The court added that the POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) Act was enacted to provide a safe environment for children to grow up in and they should be protected from serial sex offenders like the convict.

According to the prosecution case, on April 4, 2019, the child went out at around 6.15 pm to get a cup of tea from a nearby