Aluva child rape and murder case: After 100-day trial, court sentences Bihar native Asfaq Alam to death

The court sentenced the man to five years for tampering with the evidence, three years for drugging the child, a life sentence for molesting the minor, and the death penalty for raping and murdering the minor.

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One of the fastest trials

Public prosecutor G Mohanraj, who met the media on 4 November, had said the prosecution considered this case as a rarest of the rare incidents and would seek maximum punishment of death penalty to the accused.

“The court has found the accused guilty of all the 16 offences in the chargesheet. Out of which five are punishable with death penalty,” Mohanraj had told PTI.

The state government will file a report on the reformation possibility of the accused, while the jail authorities will have to file a report on his conduct inside the prison, Mohanraj added. The probation officer will file a report on the social status of the accused.

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Conviction on 100th day

Addressing media outside the court, Ernakulam Rural police chief Vivek Kumar, who headed the investigation, said the chargesheet in the case was filed within 30 days.

“I feel very proud, my team is very proud that we are part of a system in which the conviction was given after 100 days of incident,” he said.

He noted that it was one of the fastest trials in the entire country.

The sentence was pronounced on a date celebrated as Children’s Day across the country.

The date also marks the 11th anniversary of the POCSO Act, which came into effect on 14 November 2012.

The victim’s parents were present in court when the punishment was given to Alam.

The prosecution had argued that the case falls under the rarest-of-rare category and therefore, the death penalty should be given to the convict.

During arguments on sentence, Alam had claimed in court that the other accused were let go and only he was caught in the case and, beyond that, he did not make any other submission, the prosecution had said.

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Murder most foul

The girl was playing outside the building near Garage Junction where she had been living with her family on 28 July.

Around 3 pm, the girl went missing, and her family launched a search before informing the police at 7 pm.

On checking the visuals from the CCTV cameras in the neighbourhood, the police found the girl accompanying Alam. The police found the man within an hour, but could not glean any information since he was heavily drunk.

Even as the visuals went viral on social media, a headload worker at the Aluva market adjacent to the Periyar river informed the police that he had seen Aslam with a girl. Aslam reportedly told the man that the child was his daughter.

On 29 July, the search for the girl came to an end when the investigators and residents found her body packed in a gunny bag. The sack had been thrown onto a garbage heap. Meanwhile, Aslam confessed to the crime early in the morning and told officers that he had raped and killed the girl.

The man also told investigators that he had lured the girl by offering her a spiked fruit juice. It was later revealed that he had strangulated the girl and smashed her head with a stone.

Also read: Police arrest man who abducted and raped 8-year-old girl

‘Dear child, we are sorry’, says Kerala Police

The incident shocked the collective conscience of Kerala, and the police took to Facebook, saying, “Dear child, we are sorry.” The police admitted that their efforts to reunite the child with her parents had failed.

In September, a similar incident took place, when an eight-year-old girl was sexually assaulted.

The survivor was found abandoned in a paddy field, also near Aluva.

The accused, Christil (36), was identified as a native of Thiruvananthapuram who has been residing in Aluva for the past one-and-a-half years.

(With PTI inputs)