tamil-nadu

Updated: Aug 02, 2019 07:48 IST

The Supreme Court on Thursday 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 October 29, 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 November 9, 2010. Manoharan was arrested on October 31, 2010.

“On the facts of the present case there is no doubt that aggravated penetrative sexual assault was committed on a 10-year-old girl by more than one person. There can be no doubt that today’s judgement is in keeping with the legislature’s realisation that such crimes are on the rise and must be dealt severely,” Justices Nariman and Suryakant said.

Justice Khanna held that the case fell under a special category, where the convict should be directed to suffer sentence for life, which is till his death, without any remission.