‘Rarest of rare’: Chhattisgarh man sentenced to death for raping, killing girl

A special Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act court in Chhattisgarh’s Durg has sentenced a 24-year-old man to death for raping and murdering a six-year-old girl, calling the case among the “rarest of rare”.

The Supreme Court affirmed the constitutional validity of the death penalty in 1973, 1979 and 1980, holding that if capital punishment is provided in law and the procedure is fair, just and reasonable, a death sentence can be awarded but only in the “rarest of rare” cases. Courts are required to record special reasons for sentencing a convict to the gallows.

The special court convicted Somesh Yadav on Thursday under the POCSO Act Section 6(1) and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) Section 103(1) related to aggravated penetrative sexual assault and murder. He was fined ₹5,000 under each section.

Yadav was sentenced to five years’ rigorous imprisonment and fined ₹1,000 under BNS Section 238(a), which deals with disappearance of evidence or giving false information. The sentences will run concurrently.

The court directed ₹7 lakh compensation to the girl’s family under the state government’s victim compensation scheme.

The girl was found in a vehicle and declared dead at a hospital after she was reported missing in April 2025. Yadav was convicted based on physical and biological evidence and CCTV footage, apart from circumstantial evidence, after a special investigation team probed the case.