Pune court awards death penalty to 65-year-old for rape, murder of 3-year-old girl

The court held that the case falls within the "rarest of rare" category as defined by the Supreme Court.

PUNE: A fast-track court of special judge SR Salunkhe on Monday pronounced a death sentence for the 65-year-old casual worker, Bhimrao Kamble, in the brutal rape and murder of a three-year-old girl at Nasrapur in Bhor taluka of the district on May 1.

The sentence will be subject to confirmation by Bombay high court.“The case falls within the ‘rarest of rare’ category considering the manner, motive and magnitude of the crime,” judge Salunkhe said while ruling that the accused shall be hanged till death.“The court could not have pronounced a more stringent punishment than death considering the barbaric way the girl was raped and murdered. Besides, the crime has shaken the judicial as well as social conscience and a deterrent punishment was imperative to send a right signal to society.”The court also took note of the fact that Kamble had a previous history of sexual crimes and that the Nasrapur crime was a “cold-blooded, unprovoked and premeditated act”.Referring to the entire chain of circumstantial evidence on record, the court held, "It was only and only the accused who committed the crime with a motive of satisfying his lust.The postmortem report, photos of the victim, medical and forensic evidence demonstrate the barbaric act on a three-year-old girl, including vaginal and anal penetration besides the possibility of oral penetration.”

Judge Salunkhe said there were multiple factors that call for a death sentence to the accused, who is a 65-year-old man, father of married daughters and a son. “The accused not only committed the heinous acts but assaulted her even after killing her,” the judge noted.The girl’s parents and relatives, present in the packed courtroom, were overwhelmed by emotions as tears rolled down their faces soon after the judge pronounced the capital punishment.They profusely thanked Pune Rural police officials, including superintendent of police (SP) Sandeep Singh Gill, for ensuring quick justice in the case.On his part, the convict appeared visibly shaken as he looked at the judge, who told him, “Now go to the gallows”. Kamble’s relatives have already disowned him and had supported the public demand for a death sentence to him. None of his family members were present in the court.The last time when a court in Pune pronounced a death sentence was on March 1, 2022, when a special fast track court judge convicted and sentenced a 38-year-old casual worker to death for raping and murdering a two-and-a-half years old girl on Feb 15, 2021, at a village in Velhe tehsil of Pune district.In the Nasrapur case, the special court on June 25 convicted accused Kamble for kidnapping, molestation, rape and murder offences under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and sections 4 (penetrative sexual assault), 6 (aggravated penetrative sexual assault), 8 (sexual assault) and 12 (sexual harassment) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.The conviction was primarily based on the last seen theory and an unbroken chain of circumstantial evidence established by the prosecution. Senior advocate and special public prosecutor Ajay Misar, assisted by advocate Prathamesh Shingane, appeared for the state.Misar then told reporters that the state had sought capital punishment by submitting that the case falls within the ambit of the rarest of rare case as defined by the Supreme Court (SC) and had given 12 landmark SC rulings in support of such submission.

Case background

The three-year-old girl from Pune had come to her grandmother’s house in Nasrapur for summer vacation.On May 1, she was playing outside her grandmother’s home when the accused lured her to a nearby cowshed on the pretext of showing her a newborn calf. He then allegedly raped and killed her before hiding the body in the cowshed.The girl’s family started searching for her when she did not return home until late afternoon.

Her body was found in the cowshed during this search.In the ensuing police investigation, the police recovered CCTV footage, which showed accused Kamble leading the girl to the cowshed. The villagers then apprehended him and handed him over to the police.The crime sparked a state-wide public outrage over the manner in which the girl was killed and the fact that the accused was involved in past sexual crimes although he was acquitted in those crimes.It also sparked an impromptu protest on the night of May 1 when angry citizens blocked the Pune-Bengaluru highway for several hours before the police managed to convince them to disperse.The govt then announced that the case will be tried by a fast-track court on priority and the Pune Rural police too responded diligently by collecting apt evidence, witness statements and filing a charge sheet within a fortnight of the crime.In fact, Monday’s judgment by the fast-track court provides a rare instance of an accused in a rape and murder case having been tried and convicted within 55 days of the crime.The special judge did not take a single day off during the day-to-day recording of evidence as part of the in-camera trial before the final arguments and the eventual verdict.