A 23-year-old convict, who was granted a death sentence by a lower court, was granted a double life sentence by the Bombay High Court yesterday. The man was arrested by the Sangli police in 2012 for allegedly raping his niece and later killing her. A bench of Justices V K Tahilramani and G S Gadkari turned the death sentence of Vitthal Tukaram Atugade into a double life sentence.

The mother of the four-year-old girl had taken her on a visit to her parents in Atugade village in Islampur, Sangli in December 2012. Vitthal, who is the cousin of the mother, told her that he was taking his four-year-old niece to a salon.