INDIA: SC UPHOLDS DEATH TO MAN FOR RAPING GIRL, KILLING BROTHER

The Supreme Court on 1° August 2019 upheld the death penalty of a Tamil Nadu man convicted of gang raping and murdering a 10-year-old girl and also killing her seven-year-old brother.
Justices RF Nariman and Surya Kant confirmed Manoharan’s death sentence while justice Sanjiv Khanna dissented saying the case did not fall under the rarest of the rare category to warrant capital punishment.
According to the Tamil Nadu police, Manoharan and his accomplice, Mohanakrishnan, kidnapped the two children on 29 October 2010 from outside a temple in Coimbatore while they were on way to their school.
They were taken to a remote area where the two raped the girl. Later, they forced the children to have poisonous milk and threw them in a nearby canal. Mohanakrishnan was arrested on the same day but was shot dead when he allegedly snatched a policeman’s pistol on 9 November 2010. Manoharan was arrested on 31 October 2010.