A special court in Mumbai has sentenced a transgender person to death after finding them guilty of kidnapping, raping and murdering a three-month-old girlchild. The crime had taken place following a quarrel over some gifts demanded by the trangender in 2021.
The transgender was convicted of abducting, raping, murdering, and causing disappearance of evidence, and also under various sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
“When a budding infant or girl child is exterminated in a very ghastly and shocking manner, the social fabric gets permanently damaged beyond repair,” special judge Aditee Uday Kadam said. The judge said that this was a case of extreme depravity as the child was left to rot in a muddy pit in bid to destroy evidence.
“Crime smacks a degradation of a girl child, depravity and perversity. Barbaric and inhuman manner to commit offence, made it the ‘rarest of rare case’. It is a crime that would send a, ‘chill down the spine’ of every parent of girl child, especially in poor vicinity,” the court said.
The transgender has been in custody since July 9, 2021. This period shall be taken into account for the purpose of Section 433(A) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), directed Judge Kadam.
The body of the victim was found buried in a creek in south Mumbai’s Cuffe Parade area in July 2021. The baby was abducted by the accused at around 2:30 am and was buried in mud in a nearby creek.
