Contents:

Man gets death for rape and murder of minor 

17-year-old gangraped in moving car

HC for more stringent law on child abuse

Man gets death for rape and murder of minor
(Times of India)

Madanapalle: In a sensational judgment on Friday, the second additional district magistrate of Madanapalle awarded death sentence to a person for raping and murdering a minor girl.

Golla Appaiah (34) was found guilty under sections 301, 302 and 376 of the IPC for raping and killing the minor girl on August 29, 2007. Pronouncing the verdict, magistrate Ganesh Babu said hanging till death for Appaiah cannot be enough for his heinous crime.

Appaiah, son of farm worker Narasimhulu, kidnapped the fiveyear-old girl when she was playing with her friends from Metlapalle village of Chowdepalle mandal.

After raping the girl in an isolated area, he killed her by twisting her neck and later threw her body in a pit and fled from the spot. The girl was the daughter of Venkatamma, a casual worker, hailing from the same village. Following a complaint, the then CI Muneshwar Reddy arrested Appaiah near a school at Madanapalle a month after the crime.

17-year-old gangraped in moving car
(Times of India/Delhi)

New Delhi: In an incident which once again puts the focus back on safety of women in the city, a 17-year-old girl was gangraped early on Friday morning by four unidentified men in a moving vehicle.

According to the police, the victim was a resident of a hutment in Shalimar Bagh in north west Delhi and had left her room to go to the toilet around 5.15 am. “As the bathroom was outside her house, she went out when she was grabbed by four men and pulled inside a car. Because the area is empty at that hour, nobody noticed her even though the victim cried for help. The four men allegedly raped her inside the moving car taking turns and dumped her a few kilometres away,” said a police official from Shalimar Bagh police station.

He added that the victim was lying semi-conscious when a police party noticed her on the side of the road and rushed her to hospital. A medical examination confirmed rape and a case was registered at Shalimar Bagh police station. The victim is under treatment. A hunt for the accused is on and further investigations are being carried out.

HC for more stringent law on child abuse
(Times of India/Delhi)

New Delhi: Alarmed at the growing instances of child sexual abuse, the Delhi High Court has called for a more stringent law for deterrence effect, saying the definition of rape under section 376 IPC should be made age and gender neutral.

Justice S Muralidhar was hearing the appeal of a man sentenced to two years imprisonment for committing ‘‘digital rape’’ (inserting finger in vagina) of a five-year-old girl. The judge was upset that lack of a suitable law prevented the courts from inflicting the same punishment on him as that reserved for a rapist.

‘‘The offence of a child sexual abuse is an extremely grave one. Innocent and tender children are abused sexually through a variety of means, one if which is the present case. Such incidents leave a deep scar on the psyche of the child and has the potential of adversely affecting the child’s emotional and mental development... the harsh truth is that these incidents are more frequent than we imagine and very often goes unpunished by the child suffering the trauma silently,’’ the court observed, dismissing one Tara Dutt’s appeal.

HC lamented how the courts hands were tied as the crime committed by Dutt, 54 at that time and father of four children, is not recognized as a heinous crime, resulting in him being convicted under section 354 IPC (outraging modesty of a woman) and not 376 IPC (rape).

‘‘Despite the report of Law Commission of India lying with the government for over nine years and the Supreme Court in 2004 hoping that the Parliament would make appropriate changes, it is a matter of grave concern that nothing has been done till date. The absence of a stringent law can only have the pernicious effect of crime continuing undeterred,’’ HC added, saying it was high time that definition of rape was made ‘‘age and gender neutral’’ so that cases like Dutt’s could be dealt with severely.

According to the prosecution in June 1996, the victim complained to her mother that in her absence Dutt, a distant relative, committed digital rape. Following this, her mother lodged an FIR with the police and criminal proceedings were initiated against him.