Four persons were sentenced to death by a District and Sessions court in Kupwara district on Friday, eight years after they abducted, raped and murdered a 13-year-old schoolgirl who was on her way home from school.
District and Sessions judge Mohammad Ibrahim Wani awarded the death penalty to Sadiq Mir and Azhar Ahmad Mir from Kupwara, Mochi Jahangir from West Bengal and Suresh Kumar from Rajasthan. The court called it a “rarest of rare case” and said the convicts deserved no mercy.
The girl from Langate, was abducted and gang-raped by the four men on July 20, 2007. They slit her throat and buried the body in an orchard. The family members, who were searching for the girl, found her shoes and schoolbag in the orchard and then spotted her naked body covered in earth and grass a few metres away.
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As the judge read the verdict, the girl’s family members present in the court broke down and hugged each other. Hundreds of people were present inside the courtroom and outside to hear the verdict.
The family said the judgment had brought a closure to an arduous and painful journey during which they hoped and sought death punishment for the four men.
“We have fought to hear these words [death penalty] for the last eight years, but it is not over yet. We will wait for the day when they will be hanged. That day we will believe justice has been served to my sister,” said the girl’s brother said.
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The four men, who have been in prison since August 2007, were convicted on April 18. Statements of 88 witnesses were recorded in the case.
“I have been fighting this case for the last eight years. There were no eyewitnesses, but the court was satisfied with the circumstantial evidence that left no doubt that these four convicts had perpetrated the crime,” Senior Public Prosecutor Ghulam Mohammad Shah told The Hindu .