High court upholds death to rapist

JABALPUR/BHOPAL: A division bench of MP high court on Thursday confirmed the death penalty awarded to a 22-year-old boy who had gang raped a 16-year-old girl along with a minor boy and later set her ablaze.
A sessions court in Bina town under Sagar district had awarded capital punishment to the accused and referred it to the high court for confirmation. The convict had also appealed against order of the lower court.The co-accused, who was a minor, would face a separate trial in juvenile court.
It is the second case among eight referred to Jabalpur bench of MP high court in the recent past for confirmation of death sentence in which lower court verdict has been upheld. In rest of the six cases, the sentence was either commuted to life sentence or life sentence till natural death of the convict.
Indore and Gwalior bench of MP high court had also confirmed death sentence in one case each in 2018.
Justice PK Jaiswal and Justice BK Shrivastava, while upholding the capital punishment awarded to the convict, observed, “We find that there is no mitigating circumstance in favour of the appellant in the present case.
The appellant was aged 22 years at the time of commission of offence, but he breached the trust of a girl child of about 16 years when he entered with co-accused in her room by asking for water but committed gang rape and set her ablaze.