Odisha court awards death penalty to 2 in gang rape and murder of minor girl

Jagatsinghpur: A court in Jagatsinghpur today awarded death penalty to two persons in connection with gang rape and murder of a minor girl.

The two convicts were Sheikh Asif and Sheikh Shakil. Both were accused of killing an eight-year-old girl after raping her under Tirtol police limits in Jagatsinghpur district in 2014.

Hearing a case today, Judge Ajay Kumar Mohanty convicted Sheikh Asif and Sheikh Shakil and sentenced them to death for the heinous crime.

However, the POCSO court acquitted two other accused persons due to lack of evidence against them in the case.

According to reports, both Asif and Shakil had kidnapped the minor girl while she was on her way back to home after buying chocolates. They gang-raped her and threw the body above shelf of a room inside the house after murder.

The local police had booked four persons under POCSO Act in the case. Total 27 people were testified during hearing following which the court convicted and awarded death penalty to two and acquitted two other accused persons.