The special POSCO court convicted Guddu Yadav, 35, a migrant worker from Bihar in record 28 days after his arrest for the heinous crime he committed on the 4th of November. Yadav raped and murdered a two-and-a-half-year-old girl whose body was found on November 7 near a factory, located about one km away from her house.
Yadav was arrested under various charges of kidnapping, rape, and murder under the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act on November 9 after scanning several CCTV footage and collecting information from informers and locals. Yadav was prosecuted for abducting, sexually assaulting and then smothering to death a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter of another migrant worker couple, also from Bihar.
The Pandesara Police had submitted a charge sheet in seven days to help ensure that justice is delivered at the earliest. After listening to arguments from both sides and recording statements of 43 witnesses, Special POCSO court judge PS Kala convicted Yadav. The swiftness demonstrated by the court, in this case, is rare when in a country like India, it normally takes years if not decades that the justice is delivered.
Public prosecutor Nayan Sukhadwala demanded capital punishment for the convict working at a factory in the Pandesara area of Surat city with his wife and two children, while Yadav’s lawyer pleaded leniency claiming that capital punishment would make his children’s future uncertain. The quantum of punishment will be pronounced by the court today.
