MANGALURU: A Pocso court has sentenced three people to death for raping and murdering an eight-year-old girl in a factory in Mangaluru taluk, Dakshina Kannada state, in 2021.
Jayban Adivasi (24), Mukhesh Singh (23) of Panna district, Madhya Pradesh, and Manish Tirki (36) of Ranchi, Jharkhand, were the guilty trio. Muneem Singh, the fourth accused from MP, is on the run after being granted bail.
According to special public prosecutor K Badrinath Nairy, Judge Maanu KS of the additional district and sessions court sentenced the trio to death, the first time this district Pocso court has done so.
The court found the accused guilty on October 29 and heard sentencing arguments on November 4. It issued the final decision on Thursday.
On November 21, 2021, an incident was reported at a tile factory in Parari, Tiruvail. On November 21, the accused allegedly lured the minor girl with the promise of money to purchase a toffee and took her to a workplace with no CCTV cameras.
The three accused repeatedly sexually assaulted her and engaged in unnatural sex. When the girl began crying for aid, Jayban allegedly strangled her to death. The accused later hid the girl’s body in a nearby drain, according to Nairy.
Mangaluru rural police filed a case under the IPC and Pocso Act. The court examined 30 witnesses, 74 papers, and 45 material objects. The judge sentenced the three accused to death for plotting a criminal conspiracy, threatening their lives, committing gangrape, sexual assault, and murder, as well as destroying evidence.
The court ruled that the minor girl’s parents should get the Rs 1.2 lakh collective punishment levied against the defendants. The judge ordered the District Legal Services Authority to compensate the girl’s family Rs 3.8 lakh as compensation under the victim compensation system.
