After 15-day trial, Agra court gives death to man for killing 9-year-old boy

AGRA: A local court in Mathura, after just 15 days of trial, awarded capital punishment to a 26-year-old man on Monday for the sexual assault and murder of a nine-year-old boy. The court of additional sessions and special judge (Pocso Act), Ram Kishore Yadav, also imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh on the convict, Mohammad Saif, who used to work as an accountant at the hardware shop of the victim’s father, ordering 80% of the penalty to be provided to the victim's parents.
Special district government counsel (SDGCPocso), Alka Upmanyu, said, “After kidnapping the child, Saif took him to an isolated place and sexually assaulted him. Fearing that he would get caught, he strangled the child to death using an iron spring and went home after dumping the body in a pit near a drain. The DNA report later confirmed the child was sodomised. During the trial, 14 witnesses testified before the court.”
Saif is a resident of Kanpur district and presently living in Aurangabad locality of Mathura district. The boy went "missing" on the evening of April 9 and an FIR was subsequently lodged, with the police launching a manhunt. As the search went on, CCTV footage caught Saif with the child near the shop. Police arrested him within 24 hours and recovered the body from near a drain, around 500m away from the shop.
The accused was booked under IPC sections 363 (kidnapping), 377 (unnatural offences), 302 (murder), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) and the Pocso Act. Following a speedy investigation monitored by Mathura SP, Shailesh Kumar Pandey, police filed a chargesheet in the special court on April 28.
On the quantum of punishment, the SDGC said, "The defence counsel argued that the accused has small children and elderly parents, hence he should be awarded minimum punishment, whereas the prosecution argued that the victim was the only child of his parents and was just nine years old. The accused had committed a heinous crime, so he should be punished severely."
She further said, “The court found the accused guilty of all the charges and the judge pronounced the verdict in a record trial of 15 working days.”
In December last year, a special Pocso court in Mathura had sentenced a 30-yearold man to death for the rape and murder of a 10-year-old girl. The trial in that case lasted for 26 days.