Murder of 5-year-old Girl: Telangana HC Confirms Death Sentence on Rapist

Hyderabad: In a landmark judgement, a division bench of the Telangana High Court on Wednesday confirmed the death sentence on Dinesh Kumar Dharne, who raped and murdered a five-year-old girl at Narsingi seven years ago.

The death sentence had been awarded to him first by the Rangareddy District Metropolitan Sessions Judge’s Court. The High Court division bench comprising Justice P. Sam Koshy and Justice Sambasiva Rao Naidu dismissed the criminal appeal filed by the convict challenging the lower court order.

This was the first time the Telangana High Court confirmed a death sentence of the trial court. In earlier cases, the High Cout had reduced the death sentences to life imprisonment.

The bench observed that the death penalty was necessary to create a deterrent effect on society. “People should fear the consequences of committing such a heinous crime.”

The bench agreed that there are strong divergent views within the society on imposing the death penalty. “Those with a progressive mindset may argue why a death penalty should be awarded even in gruesome criminal acts. It has been always propounded that life imprisonment is the rule and the death sentence is an exception,” the court averred.

Justice Sam Koshy observed that, however, “One also cannot lose sight of the plight of the parents of the victim when they saw the body of their little daughter the first time after she went missing, lying naked with injuries in her private parts and blood oozing out.”

“To make things worse, her head was smashed with boulders. The whole dream of the mother stands totally shattered,” the bench noted.

“Imagine the plight of a mother who gave birth to a girl child, the eldest in the family, and nurtures her up with high expectations,” the high court noted and quoted a line. A tiny bud-like girl was smothered by the convict even before she could blossom in the world.”

The bench observed, “We have no hesitation in forming an opinion that the said scene must still be looming large in the minds of both the parents, even seven years after the crime took place.”

“The parents might still be having nightmares recollecting the scene and the incident and the plight of the victim that they saw at the scene of occurrence.”

The High Court also observed that there can be no statutory definition of ‘rarest of rare’ cases’ in which only the death sentences has to be imposed. “It all depends upon the facts and circumstances of each case. Each case has to be measured on its own factual backdrop, like brutality of the crime, the conduct of the offender etc while deciding the sentence part.”

“What needs to be considered, at this juncture, is that Indian laws do not hold a steady perspective of capital punishment. At the same time, India also does not dissuade it completely. Death penalties have been awarded in India occasionally, but in rarest of rare cases.”

Dinesh is a native of Kalimati village in Madhya Pradesh and he came to Hyderabad for eking out a livelihood. He was working in a construction company at Alkapuri.

The victim’s parents too are not natives. They, along with their three children, came from Odisha for their livelihood and joined the same construction company.

On December 12, 2017 around noon, Dinesh took the girl out on the pretext of buying her chocolate from a kirana shop. Later, he raped and murdered her by hitting her head with a boulder. After collecting the evidence, the trial court punished Dinesh with a death sentence.