The Delhi high court has upheld the rigorous life imprisonment awarded to a man for killing his daughter after raping her six years ago.
A division bench comprising Justices B.D. Ahmed and Veena Birbal dismissed the appeal filed by Mangal while accepting the medical report and all circumstantial evidences against him.
“The circumstantial evidence leads to an inescapable conclusion that it is the appellant who has murdered his daughter after committing rape upon her. Appellant has been rightly convicted by the sessions judge for the offences punishable under Sections 302 (murder) and 376 (rape) of IPC. We find no merit in the appeal and the same is dismissed,” the bench said while accepting the statement of convict’s neighbours that Mangal had killed his daughter as she was born out of an illegitimate relationship between his wife and brother-in-law.
Upholding the trial court’s conviction and sentence order in 2009, the bench relied upon the statement of Mangal’s neighbours who had last seen the victim in the company of her father.
The court accepted the testimony of prosecution witnesses Rakesh and Kuldeep Kumar who told the court that Mangal had confessed before them that the girl was not his daughter.
The convict Mangal used to hate the girl and had killed her by strangling her throat.
According to the prosecution, Mangal was a seasonal employee with Kuldeep Kumar, who had street-food business in Chandini Chowk.
Few days before the date of incident, Mangal had brought his daughter from his native village and told the neighbours that she would help him during the Dussehra festival.
On the night of October 10, 2005, the neighbours had heard Mangal screaming at his daughter and some of them even saw him holding the victim on his shoulder while she was in an unconscious state.