New Delhi, Mar 16 A Delhi court has sentenced a man to life imprisonment for sexually assaulting and murdering an 11-year-old boy in 2019, saying that he needed to be dealt with an iron hand due to his criminal mentality.
Additional Sessions Judge Amit Sahrawat, however, refused to award the 34-year-old the death penalty, observing that the offences were heinous in nature but did not fall in the rarest of rare category.
The court was hearing the arguments on sentencing against Karamvir Singh alias Lala, who had been convicted on February 24 for the offences of murder, unnatural sex and kidnapping, besides under Section 6 (aggravated penetrative sexual assault) of the POCSO Act.
Special public prosecutor Aditya Kumar said the convict did not deserve any leniency.
He recalled that Singh, on January 2, 2019, took the victim to an isolated place near a railway line, where he first committed unnatural sexual offence and then murdered the minor.
In an order dated March 14, the court said, “The only mitigating factor in favour of the convict is his age, i.e., 34 years, and still he has a complete life to live. It is also mitigating that this is the only criminal case against the convict.”
It, however, said that the mitigating factors were not sufficient to alleviate the sorrows and sufferings of the parents, who had lost their only child.
“The age of the convict cannot justify his misdeeds...conduct of the convict in committing this offence showcases his criminal mentality, and thus the convict does not deserve the benefit of any factor in his favour. The convict is required to be dealt with an iron hand...,” the court said.
It said that although the offences committed were heinous, they did not qualify for being in the rarest of rare category and therefore a death sentence could not be awarded.
The court then sentenced him to life imprisonment.
Regarding the aspect of compensation to the parents, the court said, “The loss of (their) only child aged about 11 and a half years and that too in the circumstances when he was brutally molested and murdered, is not bearable for any parent."
"It is also considerable that now the parents of the deceased are not medically fit to conceive a child, and they have to pass their life without any child, and this trauma is unbearable for any person,” it said.
The court then provided them Rs 15 lakh compensation.
