The Sessions Court yesterday sentenced 24-year-old cable operator Javed Sheikh to life imprisonment till death for raping and murdering a 9-year-old girl in Kurla’s Nehru Nagar area in 2010
The Sessions Court yesterday sentenced 24-year-old cable operator Javed Sheikh to life imprisonment till death for raping and murdering a 9-year-old girl in Kurla’s Nehru Nagar area in 2010.
This file photo from July 2010 shows Javed Shaikh being taken from a press conference at the Mumbai Police Commissioner’s office
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The court had, on Saturday, held Sheikh guilty under all the sections he had been charged under. While the bodies of three minors — one six-year-old and two nine-year-olds — who were raped and murdered had been recovered in the area in February, March and June 2010 respectively, Shaikh had been charged only for the last one.
Special women’s court judge Vrushali Joshi sentenced Sheikh to 10 years under Section 364 (kidnapping), to life imprisonment till death under Section 376 (2) (f) (raping a minor) and to life imprisonment till death for Section 302 (Murder) of the IPC along with a fine of Rs 30,000.
On Tuesday, special Public Prosecutor Pradip Gharat had pressed for death penalty for Shaikh saying that the case fell under the rarest of rare category. The judge, while sentencing Sheikh to life imprisonment, observed that he was young and had no past criminal record.
The family members of Sheikh, who was 19 when he committed the crime, were present in court and they were praying and crying, while his grandmother kept touching his face. The judge, after pronouncing the sentence, called Sheikh in the witness box and explained the sentence to him. After hearing it, Sheikh said he was innocent.
Observations
While convicting Sheikh, the court observed: “The motive for committing murder is of committing rape on a minor girl. The post-mortem report proves that the accused had committed forcible sexual intercourse with a child, whose organs were not even developed. The accused had a strong motive to rape a minor girl. He had taken care of the fact no one would suspect him.”
The judge further observed: “He had not taken the victim secretly. He lured her by giving her chocolate and took her by holding her hand and, therefore, nobody in the area suspected him. He had done it with a plan. The injuries on her private part proves his dastardly act. He had committed a cold-blooded gruesome murder with a plan.”
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