New Delhi, Feb 11 (PTI) A Delhi court has awarded death penalty to a man who killed a six-and-half-year-old girl after raping and sodomising her and later chopped off her hand to mislead investigation, saying that he was a "menace" to the society, having committed the "brutal and grotesque" offence. "There is no shadow of doubt that the offence that the offence has been committed in an extremely brutal, grotesque, diabolical, revolting or dastardly manner that invited extreme indignation of the community and shocked the collective conscience of the society. The convict is a menace to the society...," Additional Sessions Judge Gurdeep Singh said. Vinod, then 20-year-old and a resident of Rohini, lured away his minor neighbour on the night of August 14, 2007 and raped and sodomised her before brutally beating her and strangulating her to death. He later chopped off one of her forearms to mislead the investigators. Sending the convict to gallows, the court prepared a balance sheet of mitigating and aggravating circumstances and concluded that he cannot be reformed and deserved to be eliminated to save the society. "Therefore, the aggravating circumstances far outweigh the mitigating circumstances," the court said and cited various apex court judgements detailing circumstances under which a convict can be sent to gallows. The court distinguished the case of the convict from that of the matters decided by the Supreme Court and said "apart from vaginal and anal orifice, there were several injuries on other parts of the body. "The convict in this case has caused injuries before her death in gruesome manner inflicting extreme pain to her which even resulted injury to liver and also cut her forearm of the deceased after killing her and thrown/kept the same in the ladies toilet to distract the course of investigation and destroy the evidence."
