A local court in Pune district on Thursday awarded capital punishment to Khalaksingh Panchal, who was convicted of rape and murder of a minor boy in 2013.
The eight-year-old was sodomised and then strangulated by Panchal, who is in his mid-30s, in Chakan in May 2013.
Taking a grim view of the criminal’s offences, special judge S.R. Jagtap of the Additional District and Sessions Court in Rajgurunagar proclaimed that the accused be hanged until death under the stringent Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
In 2011, Panchal raped and murdered another minor, an eight -year-old girl, who was the daughter of a labourer working at a construction site on the suburbs of Pune.
