Man sentenced to death for raping, killing toddler

A city court Thursday sentenced a man to death for the rape and murder of a two-and-a-half-year-old girl in the city in 2013. Terming the crime committed by Suresh Paswan as "rarest of rare" incident, chief judge of City Sessions Court Siddhartha Kanjilal sentenced him to death by hanging.

The court found Paswan guilty of abduction, murder and rape under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. According to the prosecution, Paswan picked up the child from in front of the shanty she lived in under a flyover at Hastings area near Kidderpore on the night of July 21, 2013. An attender of horses at the nearby racecourse, Paswan, who was then around 40-years-old.

The girl's grandmother, with whom she resided since her mother was mentally ill and the father had deserted them, started searching for her. Some children, who lived nearby, found the girl the next morning in a gutter near the race course. The victim was taken to the state-run SSKM Hospital, where she was declared brought dead.

The post mortem examination report stated that she was raped and then throttled to death. Police registered a case and the following investigation tracked Paswan to his uncle's house in Bihar and arrested him.

Following a six-year trial, the court Thursday sentenced him to death.