Man awarded death penalty for raping and murdering toddler

A court here has awarded death sentence to a man for raping and killing a two-and-a- half-year-old girl six years ago.
Additional District and Sessions Judge D N Yadav held Dhruv Sahni guilty of the rape and murder yesterday and awarded him death sentence on the ground that the case fell under the "rarest of rare" category.
The court handed out the death penalty to the convict for the murder, under section 302 of the IPC. It also sentenced Sahni to 20 years of imprisonment and slapped a fine of Rs 20,000 on him for the rape, under section 376, IPC.

The convict was also sentenced to seven years in jail under section 201, IPC for causing disappearance of evidence in the case.
The court, however, acquitted the three other accused in the case for lack of evidence against them.
The convict, a resident of Akauna village of the district, has been lodged in the Motihari central jail since his arrest soon after the incident was reported in 2011.

As per the prosecution, Sahni took the toddler to a field, where he raped her before slitting her throat with a knife on March 21, 2011. The family members of the child were watching television at a neighbour's house when the crime took place.

The body of the girl was found from a wheat field the next day and subsequently, an FIR was lodged by her father, Sagar Sahni, against four persons, including Sahni.
The police had recovered the knife used in the crime from the spot and the convict had confessed to his crime after his arrest on March 30, 2011, according to the prosecution.