A 26-year-old man was sentenced to death by a special court here on Thursday for raping and killing a six-year-old girl in Cuttack district in April 2018.
Additional District and special POCSO court Judge Vandana Kar sentenced Mohammad Mushtaq to capital punishment after convicting him under section 302 (murder) and other sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, Special Public Prosecutor A K Nayak said.
The girl was found in a critical condition with deep injuries on her head, face and neck and groin areas from a school campus in Jagannathpur village under Salepur police station limits in the evening of April 21, 2018.
Mushtaq of the village was arrested the day after the incident. The girl died while undergoing treatment at the SCB Medical College and Hospital here on April 29, 2018.
The girl had gone to a kiosk in her village to purchase biscuits on that fateful evening but went missing. She was later found lying unconscious in a pool of blood without clothes on her body inside the school campus.
After committing rape, the convict had brutally assaulted the girl apprehending trouble as she had raised an alarm.
Mushtaq was booked under section 302 of the IPC after the girl died.
A 500-page chargesheet was submitted in the case, in which 23 witnesses were examined, Nayak said.
This was the fourth death penalty awarded in less than two months in Odisha by POCSO courts.
On September 10, a court in Jagatsinghpur sentenced a man to death for raping and killing a nine-year-old girl in a village last year, while on August 28, a 25-year-old man was awarded death penalty in Mayurbhanj district for raping and killing an eight-year-old tribal girl last year.
On July 26, a POCSO court in Angul sentenced a 20-year-old man to death for raping and killing a girl.