In 5 days, 2 get death for raping, killing minors in Rajasthan

An Ajmer POCSO court has awarded death sentence to a man for raping and killing an 11-year-old girl in June. This order comes five days after an accused was found guilty and sentenced to death in a similar case.

The court announced the punishment for Sundar alias Surendra alias Santu, lodged in Pushkar police station, on Tuesday.

According to Director General of Police M.L. Lather, on June 21, the 11-year-old girl went out to graze the goats but failed to return.

After frantic search, the girl's body was found on a hilltop around midnight with several injury marks. Based on her father's complaint, the then police station officer Rajesh Meena registered a case under the IPC and POCSO Act in Pushkar police station.

The then Superintendent of Police Ajmer Jagdish Chandra Sharma too reached the spot and called the technical and FSL team to collect all the physical evidence.

A Medical examination and post-mortem of the girl was conducted and special teams were formed to arrest the accused.

DGP Lather said that the special team was constituted the next day and the accused was taken into custody. After completing the investigations in just four days, a challan was presented against the accused in POCSO Court Ajmer on June 25.

Under the "Awaaz Do" campaign to give the harshest punishment to the accused, the case was selected under the Case Officer Scheme and SHO Pushkar took over as the Case Officer.

After the start of trial by the POCSO Court Judge, Ajmer, Ratan Lal Mund, the witnesses were summoned. The court reserved the verdict by convicting the accused Santu on Monday.

On Tuesday, he was sentenced to death. Special Public Prosecutor Rupendra Kumar Parihar represented the victim.

This is the second case when a rapist was given a death sentence.

Earlier, on October 22, Dinesh Jat (26), accused of raping and killing a seven-year-old girl from Nagaur's Thana Padu Kala area, was sentenced to death by the court.