File photo shows mob setting a police vehicle on fire after the death of a girl, at Tiljala area in Kolkata on March 27, 2023.
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

A man was awarded death penalty for the rape and murder of a 7-year-old minor by the Alipore District and Session Court in Kolkata on Thursday (September 26, 2024).

The crime had occurred in March 2023 when the people of West Bengal had erupted in widespread protests against the heinous crime. 

POCSO judge Sudipto Bhattacharya sentenced the accused Ashok Shaw to death and said that this crime is “rarest of the rare” cases. The judge also noted that the girl was a minor and had no way of defending herself when the heinous crime was committed on her. 

According to the autopsy report the minor’s body bore blunt weapon injury and strangulation marks. 

The judge found the accused Shaw guilty of rape and murder of the minor and sentenced him to death penalty for the crime. The trail was finished within a year after the charge sheet was filed by the local police. The charge sheet was filed on June 16, 2023. More than 45 witnesses were examined during the course of this trial.  

In the order the court also said the West Bengal government must pay ₹10 lakh to the victim’s family under the victim compensation scheme of the State.  

Minor missing 

On March 26, 2023, the minor had gone missing in the Tiljala area when she had gone out to get milk and drop off a garbage bag on her mother’s request. Hours after she had gone out, she did not return home. The worried parents reached the Tiljala Police Station and filed a missing report. 

The police conducted search and rescue operation in the area and also looked through CCTV footage in the area and realised that the girl had returned to the building after completing her tasks.  

After searching through all the flats in the building the police recovered her body from one of the neighbours apartments. The body was found brutalised and wrapped in a gunny bag lying inside the kitchen. 

The locals in the Park Circus and Tiljala area broke out in protests and vandalised multiple vehicles demanding justice for the minor.