On the evening of November 3, 2003, while returning from the home of a classmate, 7-year-old Raj Preet Kaur (alias Guddi) a 2nd standard student was allured to the cotton field of Amrit Singh, a farmer from Ramgarh estate in Shahpuria, Punjab (
31- year-old Amrit Singh raped the little girl. She died of excessive bleeding from her private parts. Her dead body was recovered from the field late that night.
He was arrested on the basis of a statement of a witness who had seen the victim in his company on the fateful evening. M.S. Chohan, Additional Sessions Judge, Mansa, sentenced Amrit Singh to death after holding him guilty of raping a minor and then murdering her. The sentence was later upheld by the
Investigators had pointed out that the little girl had resisted the 31-year-old Amrit Singh. Some black hair was found in her hand, which they felt was Singh's.
He had refused to offer his hair sample for a DNA test.
The victim's body bore the sign of extreme brutality. She was smothered and grievously assaulted by Singh. His lawyer had sought to give a twist to the case saying some other persons who were not arrested might have raped and killed her.
Amrit Singh moved the apex court challenging the conviction. On November 13, 2006, three years after the ruling of the trial court, the Supreme Court of
Times of
A Supreme Court Bench comprising Justices S B Sinha and Dalveer Bhandari also agreed with the trial court and the HC about the guilt of the accused and felt that Amrit was rightly convicted for rape.
However, it had serious doubts about fastening the murder charge on the accused. "The death occurred not as a result of strangulation but because of excessive bleeding," the Bench said quoting the doctor's report, which noted that at that age, a girl has two litres of blood in the body and as she had bled half-a-litre of blood, it was enough to cause death from shock.
"The death occurred, therefore, as a consequence of, and not because of, any specific act on the part of the accused," said Justice Sinha, writing the judgment.
It refused to classify the gruesome act as a "rarest of rare" case which had resulted in the death of a girl who was ostensibly being escorted home by the accused, her neighbor, on the evening of November 3, 2003.
Courts impose a death sentence only after being convinced that the case falls in the rarest of rare category.
The apex court imposed rigorous imprisonment for life on Amrit Singh, but when judged by the standards used in the Hetal Parekh case, the Bench may seem to have taken a lenient view of the heinous crime.
The Supreme Court Bench said: "Amrit Singh had no premeditation for commission of the offence. The offence may look heinous, but under no circumstances can it be said to be a rarest of rare case."
"Momentary lapse" as a mitigating factor may be cited by the defence attorney of a rape case accused. "The way the girl was raped may be brutal, but it could have been a momentary lapse on the part of Amrit Singh, seeing a lonely girl at a secluded place."
(The above news has been compiled from sources such as Ind Law News, The Tribune, DNA India. The latter portion was compiled from “Victim dies, rapist spared the noose” Times of India, dated November 13, 2006.)
Life imprisonment in
To empathize with a person, one has to be of a similar bent of mind. Thank goodness our Apex court has people who can empathize with criminals like Amrit Singh!
