Child rape-murder case: Brutality alone no ground for death, says MP HC

BHOPAL: The Gwalior bench of Madhya Pradesh high court Friday commuted the death sentence of a man, convicted of raping and murdering a 9-year-old girl, to life imprisonment, holding that while the crime was “heinous”, it did not warrant capital punishment as the case did not fit the criteria to be adjudged “rarest of rare”.A division bench of justices GS Ahluwalia and Anuradha Shukla upheld the conviction of Kallu Rathore by the trial court under IPC sections 302, 366, and 376(AB), besides provisions of Pocso Act, but converted the death sentence into imprisonment for the remainder of his natural life.Setting aside the lower court order, the two-judge bench said, “The crime is not of such a nature that it should be punished with the death sentence.”The bench observed that although the victim was a “helpless child who was lured away by a trusted relative”, the prosecution could not establish the…