Odisha: Two persons awarded death penalty for gangrape, murder of minor girl

A Protection Of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) court on Tuesday awarded death sentence to two persons for the gangrape and murder of an 8-year-old girl in Jagatsinghpur district of Odisha.

Two others were acquitted due to lack of evidence.

The incident took place in August 2014.

Fast track court judge Ajay Mohanty sentenced the two convicts to death by hanging under Section 302 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) holding them guilty of sexually assaulting the minor girl and murdering her. The judge, however acquitted two others due to lack of cogent evidence.

On August 21, 2014, the minor girl had gone to the local market to buy chocolates when four youths of her village forcibly took her to an abandoned house and gangraped her.

Locals who found the minor girl, had taken her to a nearby private nursing home in Cuttack where she was declared dead.