INDIA. GUJARAT HIGH COURT UPHOLDS DEATH SENTENCE FOR RAPE AND MURDER OF MINOR

the Gujarat High Court in Ahmedabad, India, upheld a lower court judgement sentencing Ramesh Rathod, 31, to death for kidnapping, raping and murdering a 10-year-old girl in Surat city in 1999. The Division bench upheld the sentence awarded earlier to the accused by the Surat sessions court on July 18, 2005 and observed that the case fell into the "rarest of rare” category.
It was alleged that on December 17, 1999, Rathod kidnapped the girl from the apartment in Surat where he was working as a watchman. Rathod later confessed to the crime and led police to the place where he had buried the girl’s body. Police found approximately 10 external injuries on the girl's body, including on her sexual organs, and recovered the knife with which he had allegedly murdered the minor.