Man gets death sentence for kidnapping, murdering minor boy (Maharashtra)

May 9, 2018 11:20 PM IST

Nagpur, May 9 (PTI) The Nagpur District Court today awarded the death penalty to a man for kidnapping and murdering an 11-year-old boy in the city in 2013.

Santosh Kadve (26), the accused, was held guilty of kidnapping and murdering the boy on June 10, 2013, said special public prosecutor Vijay Kolhe. Sessions judge Shekhar Munghate delivered the verdict today, he said. “The case fell under the ‘rarest of rare’ category and we had sought capital punishment. We proved the boy was last seen with Kadve by examining two child witnesses,” he said.

Santosh Kadve

A total of 27 witnesses were examined by the prosecution. The boy had gone missing while playing outside his house in the Khapri area here. According to the prosecution, Kadve, who lived nearby, had kidnapped him. He later called the boy’s parents and demanded Rs 2 lakh in ransom. Police tried to track him down from the mobile phone from which Kadve had called. When they finally zeroed in on Kadve, they found that he had already killed the boy and dumped his body near Mihan Overbridge, covering it with stones. 

The body was found on the basis of the information given by Kadve during the interrogation, a fact which the court considered while holding him guilty, the prosecutor said.

Yash Borkar, 11 year old boy

This is published unedited from the PTI feed.

Source: https://www.india.com/news/agencies/man-gets-death-sentence-for-kidnapping-murdering-minor-boy-3044555/ (Accessed 24 December 2018)

Death Penalty for Heinous Crime Not Barbaric, Says Supreme Court

All India | Reported by A Vaidyanathan, Edited by Anindita Sanyal | Updated: August 23, 2015 20:23 IST 

NEW DELHI: In the wake of the debate over the death penalty following the execution of Mumbai attack convict Yakub Memon, the Supreme Court has said capital punishment is not inhuman or barbaric and will not violate the right to life and liberty in heinous crimes. The observation came on Friday from a three-judge bench which was hearing the appeal from a murder case convict who has been given the death sentence.

Vikram Singh, who had been convicted for abducting and killing a 16-year-old, had challenged his death sentence, arguing that capital punishment is applicable only to terrorists. The bench of Justices TS Thakur, RK Agrawal and AK Goel said, "A sentence of death in a case of murder may be rare, but if the courts have found it is the only sentence that can be awarded, it is difficult to revisit that question..." What was important, the top court said, was that the punishment should be should be proportionate to the crime.

"Death penalty in a case of kidnapping or abduction will not qualify to be described as barbaric or inhuman so as to infringe the right to life guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution," the court said. While death penalty is awarded in the rarest of the rare cases, the last few persons to be executed were people convicted on terror charges - Afzal Guru, who was convicted in the 2001 Parliament attack case and Ajamal Kasab, the lone Pakistani terrorist caught for the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai. But it was Yakub Memon's execution that not only triggered questions from the civil society about his punishment, but also on the larger debate on death penalty.

Vikram Singh had been arrested for the abduction and murder of school student Abhi Verma in 2005. He was awarded the death sentence by the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which was later confirmed by the Supreme Court. He had challenged the death sentence given for the crime he was booked under - kidnapping for ransom (Section 364A). Punishments under the section include death sentence, life imprisonment and a fine.

Source: https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/death-penalty-for-heinous-crime-not-barbaric-says-supreme-court-1210194 (Accessed on 18 December 2018)

Man sentenced to death for Haridwar rape, double murder

D S Kunwar, TNN | Nov 1, 2013, 04.14 AM IST DEHRADUN: A court on Thursday awarded capital punishment to a 26-year-old man in a case of rape and double murder in Haridwar district's Manglaur town. The additional district judge's court found Wajid Ali guilty of kidnapping a 13-year-old girl from her residence in Manglaur, raping her in a nearby village, poisoning her to death and also causing her grandmother's death by running his car over the woman on February 19. The court said since the case belonged to the rarest of rare category, the culprit deserved to be accorded a punishment not less than the death penalty. It said the manner in which Ali crushed the teenage girl's grandmother, 65-year-old Momin, to death was most inhuman and brutal. Momin had been grappling with Ali to prevent him from kidnapping her granddaughter. The cases against Ali were registered based on the statement made by the teenager before the police a couple of minutes before her death.

HC commutes death penalty of 2 to 30-year jail term

Express news service : Wed May 08 2013, 02:39 hrs
BOMBAY High Court Tuesday set aside death penalty of two persons who kidnapped and murdered a four-year-old boy in Navi Mumbai in 2004. The court sentenced both convicts to 30 years’ imprisonment.
A division bench of Justices V M Kanade and P D Kode held that the case could not be included in the “rarest of rare” category as laid down by Supreme Court. The death sentence was awarded by a sessions court in March last year.
The accused — Nihal Ahmed Shaikh and Rafiq Mohammed Sayyed — are said to have kidnapped the boy, Nitesh Wadhwa- on April 24, 2004, from his residence in Vashi. A month later, police found Nitesh’s body of Nitesh after the accused were arrested. The accused had demanded a ransom of Rs 5.5 lakh from the boy’s father, Prakash Wadhwa.
“We are of the considered opinion that in the facts and circumstances of the instant case, it cannot be said to be of a rarest of rare nature warranting the extreme penalty of death,” the order said. The judges observed that the medical evidence did not indicate that the murder was committed in an unusually cruel manner.
They also observed that the accused did not have any criminal antecedents, and also that they come from the poor strata of society.
Both the accused lived in a room in Turbhe and are originally from Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh. They are currently lodged at Yerawada central prison in Pune. The judges took into account their young age — they were 25 and 22 years old respectively at the time of the offence.

 Source : http://m.indianexpress.com/news/hc-commutes-death-penalty-of-2-to-30year-jail-term/1112870/