Court hands down death penalty to convict for brutal rape and murder of 7-year-old, citing him as a “menace to society” that must be “removed”
A Delhi court Friday sentenced a man to death for raping and brutally killing a seven-year-old girl in 2019. “He (accused) has become a menace to society and, therefore, needs to be removed. His case, thus, fits in the bracket of ‘rarest of rare cases’,” noted Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Babita Puniya of Tis Hazari Court.
The man’s father, Ram Saran, was awarded a life sentence. “… he does not deserve any leniency as he participated in the commission of gruesome murder of an innocent defenseless child to wipe out the evidence of rape committed by his son,” noted the court.
“I am of the view that if leniency is shown… the court would be failing in its duty towards the victim and society at large which demands stringent punishment (to those) who commit such heinous crimes. Convict Rajender @ Satish killed the innocent child without any compunction as if she was not worthy of living anymore. She also had the right to bloom like a flower in a safe environment, which we as a society failed to provide her,” ASJ said.Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) Sharawan Kumar Bishnoi, had submitted in court that Rajender also kidnapped and raped a girl, aged 8, when he was 20 years old.
When he was out on bail in that case, submitted the SPP, he raped and killed another girl (the deceased in this case). In both the cases, his prey were “little defenseless girls”, the SPP said.
“However, instead of taking advantage of that opportunity to reform himself (when granted bail) and become a good citizen…, he committed an even more heinous crime that is he committed anus-penile, vagina-penile penetration and then along with his father, he murdered the innocent child,” the judge noted.
The deceased was on her way to a eatery when she was kidnapped by Rajender and taken to his house and raped. He then murdered her. Father and son tied her limbs with a rope, stuffed the body in a suitcase and dumped it in a park.
“The postmortem report reflects how brutally and inhumanly she was assaulted… the inherent gravity of this crime is not just the rape, which is already a curse in our society, but also the rape of a poor seven-year-old child…,” the court said.
“…if the father had scolded his son… for the first offence instead of finding ways to save him, then it would have had a deterrent effect… But instead of showing him the right path, he tried to hide his son’s misdeeds and ended up murdering a 7-year-old…,” the court noted while sentencing Ram Saran to life imprisonment.
According to the ‘Death Penalty in India: Annual Statistics Report 2024’ published by Project 39A, a criminal justice programme at the National Law University delhi there were 564 death row prisoners in jails across India by the end of 2024, the highest number since 2000.According to the report, in 2024, trial courts awarded 139 death sentences. However, the Supreme Court, which heard six appeals, commuted five death sentences and acquitted one.
