VS Dupare was handed the death sentence by a trial court for raping and murdering a 4-year-old

A 55-year-old man who had raped and stoned to death a four-year-old girl will be hanged to death, the Supreme Court said today. The court said the "extreme depravity" of the crime does not allow for any possible mitigating circumstances.Vasanta Sampat Dupare, a resident of Nagpur, had killed the child in April 2008. He had lured her with chocolates and after raping her, crushed her head with stones to prevent identification. The man, who had four other criminal cases against him earlier, then hid the body.Dupare was found guilty and sentenced to death. The sentence was upheld by the Bombay High Court in 2008. The Supreme Court confirmed it in November 2014, calling the crime "diabolical and barbaric".In its judgment, the top court had said, "This is not only betrayal of individual trust but destruction and devastation of social trust. It is perversity in its enormity".From Nagpur jail, where he is currently lodged, Dupare had applied for a review. His lawyer argued that he had been deprived of an opportunity to make submissions. The trial court, his lawyer said, had imposed the death sentence on him "on the very same day he was convicted in the case."

Refusing to review its sentence today, the top court said, "We have given anxious consideration to the issue In view of the extreme depravity and barbaric manner in which crime was committed clearly out way the mitigating circumstances."For Dupare, the next and the last step is appeal for a Presidential pardon.