On Tuesday, a special POCSO Act court in Savli sentenced a 20-year-old man to death for killing an eight-year-old boy after sodomising him. Dhirendrasinh Thakor, who kidnapped the boy for ransom in October 2016, was sentenced to death by special judge J A Thakkar.
The court also recommended that the Vadodara District Legal Services Authority award the boy’s parents Rs 10 lakh in compensation. While imposing the death penalty on the accused, the court stated that the crime was “the rarest of rares.” The crime was premeditated and committed without any kind of instigation, according to the special POCSO court.
Thakor was found guilty of kidnapping, kidnapping for ransom, murder, causing evidence to vanish, unnatural offences under the Indian Penal Code (IPC), and violating Section 4 of the POCSO Act. He was sentenced to death for murder and kidnapping for ransom. Thakor, who was living in Desar village with his maternal grandparents at the time, kidnapped the boy on October 21, 2016, according to the prosecution.
The accused kept the boy locked up in an attic room at his grandparents’ house, from which he sent several text messages to the boy’s father demanding Rs 10 lakh in exchange for the boy’s release. He strangled the boy to death after committing sodomy, enraged by the delay in receiving the money.
Thakor stuffed the body in a box and left it in the same room after the murder. He later joined the search operation to deceive the investigators.
When the body was discovered, he was arrested on suspicion.