(Trigger warning: Mentions of rape, murder, and violence against children)
The Ernakulam Additional District Sessions Court on Tuesday, 14 November, sentenced Asfaq Alam to death for raping and murdering the five-year-old daughter of a Bihari migrant couple in Kerala's Aluva in July this year.
What happened? The five-year-old girl was abducted by Alam on the afternoon of 28 July from outside her home. Her body was discovered the next day near the Aluva market where she was brutally raped and murdered.
The case: Alam faced 16 charges in the case, including murder, rape, unnatural sex, kidnapping, and aggravated penetrative sexual assault, and was booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
The court, which began hearing case on 7 September, had found him guilty of these offences on 4 November – four months after the commission of the crime.
More details: He was awarded the death penalty for murdering the child and life imprisonment for the POCSO offences. He received an additional five years for hiding the evidence.
Alam is also learnt to have a criminal history and was involved in a child molestation case in New Delhi.
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