FOUR KILLED, 30 INJURED AFTER TRAIN DERAILS IN GERMANY

BERLIN: Four people were killed and 30 injured when a busy regional train derailed near a popular ski resort and hiking destination in southern Germany on Friday, police said.

Fifteen of the injured were receiving hospital treatment, a police spokesperson said, adding that 60 people had been on board at the time of the crash, which occurred north of Garmisch-partenkirchen in Bavaria.

Prosecutors and police have launched an investigation into the cause of the accident, the official said.

There were many school students on board the train, the regional Muenchener Merkur newspaper reported, citing local paper the Garmisch-partenkirchen Tagblatt. stall for her mother, who was recently operated upon and recuperating at home. The perpetrator, who lives in the same locality, met her on the way and took her to an abandoned house where he sexually assaulted and killed the child. He left the spot immediately after the incident and came back at 2 am, put the body in a gunny bag and dumped it in the septic tank of a nearby public toilet.

When the child did not return home, her parents approached the Juhu police. During the probe, some locals informed the police that they had seen a man take the girl behind a temple near the abandoned house.

CCTV footage from the temple showed the accused taking the girl with him. Later, he was also captured in the CCTV taking a gunny bag with him.

Accepting the prosecution evidence, the POCSO court had, on May 27, convicted the 31-year-old. The court handed him the death penalty on Fri

DEATH PENALTY

day, after hearing arguments on the quantum of sentence.

Special public prosecutor Vaibhav Baghade had sought death sentence for the 31-yearold, primarily on the ground that he was previously also convicted for a sexual assault on another 9-year-old girl and was a threat to the society. Baghade had pointed out to the court that the earlier incident had taken place in January, 2013 and in August 2013 the convict was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for sexually assaulting another nine-yearold

girl from the locality, but was granted premature release in May 2018 after serving five years in jail.

“This is a fit case for seeking capital punishment,” Baghade had said. “He (the convict) had no respect for law and punishment and this also shows that the reformative theory of punishment will not work in this case.” Defence lawyer, advocate Sunanda Nandewar had claimed the case did not fall in the “rarest of rare” category and argued that the maximum punishment was unwarranted as

Our family devastated: Victim’s mother

Speaking to reporters outside the court, the victim’s mother said the incident had devastated their family.

“My husband was working at a hospital, but after the incident he just doesn’t speak with anyone and doesn’t go outside the house,” she added. She said her son does not even know the ordeal his sister went through or that she is dead. “He thinks she is away in a hostel,” she said.

“We wanted the convict to get the death sentence, as we didn’t want him to come out of jail and do this to some other child,” said the woman, who works at a civic hospital as a Class IV employee. “My daughter had come back from school and was hungry, when I sent her to bring some tea for me,” said the woman. “It keeps coming back to me…. I should have fed her first.”