A 26-year-old man was sentenced to death by Indore district court on Saturday. He was accused of raping and murdering a three-month-old girl in Rajwada.
The man has been identified as Naveen Gadge. He was arrested on April 20 for raping the baby. The police identified the accused as the uncle of the infant from the CCTV footage. He is the cousin of the victim’s mother.
Additional Sessions Judge Varsha Sharma awarded death sentence to Naveen Gadke under IPC section 376 (A) (death due to injuries during the rape) which was introduced under the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013, and section 302 (murder). He was also found guilty under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. The verdict has come within 22 days of the incident.
“Given the heinous and gruesome manner in which the cruel act was done by the accused, this person is like a gangrene disease in the society. Like the doctor cuts off gangrene-affected parts of a patient’s body through operation, in the same way, it is also necessary to keep such criminal away to protect the society from them. Such person is deadly for the society,” said Judge Sharma.
The CCTV images show that the man carried the baby on his shoulder and took her to the basement of a commercial building, around 50 metres away from where her family was sleeping. After raping the child, he mercilessly banged the girl’s head on the ground and killed her, as reported by The Indian Express.
The special investigation team formed by the police completed the investigation within seven days of the incident. The charge sheet was filed on April 27, said District prosecution officer District Akram Sheikh. The charges were framed on April 28, and the case was heard on a daily basis from May 1. The prosecution examined 29 witnesses, including the accused’s estranged wife. Gadke was distantly related to the victim’s parents, who sold balloons and slept outside the historical Rajwada building here, he added.
According to the police, Gadge was having issues with his wife. His wife had left him. He went to the victim’s mother and asked her to intervene in the marital dispute. As he started arguing, he was driven away. He kidnapped the girl from the spot while her parents were asleep in the wee hours of April 20. He raped and murdered the girl. Her body was found on the afternoon of April 20, and soon Gadke was arrested.
Also published on Medium.
