SC commutes death sentence of man who raped, murdered 6-year-old stepdaughter

…good conduct in jail and had no criminal antecedents other than the present case. However, what the court could not reconcile with was the helplessness of the victim and the position of the accused as a stepfather. “ The appellant made the home the site of her violation and made himself the author of it. The betrayal of the trust reposed in a guardian, and the transformation of the protector into the predator, is an aggravating circumstance of a high order, for it strikes not only at the child but at the security of the familial relation itself, upon which the safety of every child depends, ” the bench said. The child was raped for months by the stepfather and when he suspected that she had shared this with her mother, he got infuriated and throttled her to death on April 21, 2018. Incidentally, this was…

…aggravating circumstances, the court balanced them with the mitigating factors, primarily the fact that he had no criminal antecedents, no disciplinary record in jail and satisfactory conduct with other prisoners. “ We accordingly commute the sentence of death imposed upon the appellant for the offences under Section 302 and Section 376AB of the IPC to a sentence of imprisonment for the remainder of his natural life, that is, imprisonment for life which shall extend to the whole of the remainder of his natural life and upon which no remission shall be granted, ” the court held.…