The High Court of Bombay has spared a man the gallows & sentenced him to life imprisonment for killing a 4-year-old girl in Bhiwandi to take revenge against her father, a paan stall owner, for allegedly slapping him over non-payment of Rs 1,500 owed by him for the purchase of cigarettes & tobacco.
Justice Sadhana Jadhav and Justice Prithviraj Chavan heard the state’s reference to confirm the March 8, 2019, order of a Pocso Court in Thane awarding the death sentence to Mohammad Aabed Mohammad Ajmir Shaikh.
On April 4, 2018, the almost-decomposed body of the girl was found in thorny bushes on open land. The 4-year-old girl had gone missing since April 1 evening. Her father filed a missing complaint the next morning. On April 6, Shaikh, a powerloom worker, confessed to his co-worker that he had throttled the child as her father had slapped him eight months earlier. When the co-worker informed Shaikh’s brother, Shaikh fled to his native place. His brother led the police to bring him back.
The Court said Shaikh’s extra-judicial confession to his co-worker, in whom he reposed faith, “is voluntary & truthful”. His act of absconding implicates him. The judges said it is not a case of false implication or mistaken identity & “the act is brought to light by none other than the accused”.
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Disagreeing with prosecutor Arfan Sait and agreeing with Shaikh’s lawyer Payoshi Roy, the Judges acquitted him of rape under the Indian Penal Code & Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act as “there was no specific finding of cause of death due to sexual assault”. Also, sexual assault was determined only on the chemical analysis report, which “could either be erroneous or misconceived”.
Observing that the case does not fall into the “rarest of rare” category, as a mitigating factor the judges considered Shaikh was hardly 20 years old at the time of the offence. “The fact that he had confessed about his guilt would show that he had repented for the act committed by him,” said the Judges, adding that material on record indicates he can be reformed.
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