Migrant who raped & killed 6-yr-old gets death sentence

HYDERABAD: A Metropolitan Sessions Court at LB Nagar on Tuesday awarded death sentence to a migrant worker from Madhya Pradesh, accused of kidnapping, raping and brutally murdering a six-year-old girl at Narsingi in December 2017.

Dinesh Kumar Dharne lured the girl with chocolates, took her to the bushes and raped her. Fearing that she would inform her parents about it, he bludgeoned her to death. He had not only raped her ghastly by stretching her legs apart, but also smashed her head with a boulder, killing her on the spot. 

Dharne was charged with Sections 363, 366, 376(A) and 302 of the IPC and the POCSO Act. Judge B Suresh also imposed a fine of `1,000 on him. The girl’s parents, from Bihar, had moved to Hyderabad in search of job.

This is the first death sentence in Telangana this year and also the first in the Cyberabad Commissionerate limits since its formation in 2003. In fact, it is the first delivered by the Rangareddy district court in over three decades.

Additional Public Prosecutor advocate K Raja Reddy, appearing on behalf of the prosecution, said the court termed it as the rarest of rare cases. Cyberabad Commissioner VC Sajjanar termed it a landmark judgement and said it was a result of a watertight case made against the accused. 

The victim’s parents and Dinesh, who was then aged 23, would work at the same construction site in Narsingi and knew each other well. On the day of the incident, when the girl was playing outside her hut, Dharne took her to a nearby grocery shop on the pretext of buying her chocolates.

When her parents could not find her for long, they questioned Dharne, who said he had dropped her back at the construction site and hadn’t seen her ever since. The parents lodged a complaint at the Narsingi police station. Dharne was detained and on being questioned, he confessed to have raped and killed her.