A court in Bihar’s Sasaram on Thursday (May 11) awarded a death sentence to a convict Mohammad Shahid in a 2009 rape-cum-murder of a minor. Sasaram’s additional district and sessions judge Manoj Kumar convicted Shahid, a grocery shop owner in the Dhansoin area of Buxar, on the two charges on Thursday and imposed a Rs 76,000 fine.
Notably, Shahid committed the crime in the year 2009. He was arrested on charges of rape and murder. The trial started in the year 2010. The court examined 11 prosecution witnesses in the 14-year-long legal battle before finally delivering justice to the family of the victim.
According to the additional public prosecutor (APP) Vidya Sagar Rai, the lawyer for the victim’s family, the court noted that the girl lost her father at an early age and lived with her mother. the court, while delivering the verdict, explained the rationale behind awarding the death sentence to the accused. It said that Shahid was not entitled to live and move freely in society and would pose a risk to girls even inside their houses. Calling it the rarest of rare cases, the court sentenced Mohammad Shahid to death.
Rai said that the incident had taken place when Shahid, a native of Buxar district, went to Semri village of the adjoining Rohtas district under Kargahar police station to attend a marriage function of his relative on June 16, 2009.
The victim, who was 15 years old then, had just finished pasting cow dung cakes on a wall for drying at their house and went home. Shahid followed her and raped her.
After the rape, the accused killed her and buried the body near the scene of the crime. The local police managed to discover the dead body two days after the incident.
