Two get life sentence for gang rape, murder of minor Dalit sisters in Lakhimpur Kheri

Nearly a year after two minor Dalit sisters were gang-raped and murdered, a POCSO court on Monday sentenced two of the convicts to life imprisonment and two others to six years in jail.

Additional District Judge (ADJ) Rahul Singh had convicted the four on various charges on Friday in connection with the killing of the two siblings whose bodies were found hanging from a tree in a sugarcane field near a village in Nighasan.

On Monday, the judge sentenced Sunil and Zunaid to life imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 46,000 each, Special Public Prosecutor, POCSO cases, Brijesh Pandey told media persons.

The POCSO court had on Friday held Junaid and Sunil alias Chhotu guilty under IPC sections 363 (kidnapping), 376D (A) (gangrape of a woman under 16 years of age), 302 (murder) and 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) among others and relevant sections of the POCSO Act.

The court sentenced the other two convicts namely Karimuddin and Arif to six years rigorous imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 5000 each on charges after holding them guilty under section 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) of IPC, Pandey said.

The incident occurred on September 14, 2022, when the two minor Dalit sisters in Nighasan area here were kidnapped and brutally murdered after gang rape.        

An FIR for murder, rape and several other sections of the IPC, POCSO Act and SC/ST Act was lodged and a special investigation team (SIT) was formed to work out the case.      

The SIT arrested six accused in connection with the crime. Two of the accused were found to be minors. The SIT completed its investigation and filed a charge sheet in the special POCSO court on September 28, 2022.

Pandey had also said that judgment on a minor accused, whose trial was also held in the POCSO court owing to his age between 16 to 18 years, would be pronounced later by the court.      

He added that the trial of the sixth teenager accused is in progress in the juvenile justice board.