‘Kind Enough to Leave Minor Alive,' MP HC Reduces Jail Term of Convict Who Raped 4-Year-Old

New Delhi: The Indore bench of the Madhya Pradesh high court has reduced the sentence of a man convicted for raping a four-year-old child, saying that "he was kind enough to leave the minor [girl] alive."

The convict's lawyer told the court that he had been falsely implicated, and that he has already served a jail term of 15 years.

In an order on October 18, the bench said, “Considering the demonic act of the appellant who appears to have no respect for the dignity of a woman and has the propensity to committee sexual offence even with a girl child aged four, this court does not find it to be a fit case where the sentence can be reduced to the sentence already undergone by him.”

"However, considering the fact that he was kind enough to leave the [girl] alive, this court is of the opinion that the life imprisonment can be reduced to 20 years' rigorous imprisonment," said the bench of Justices Subodh Abhyankar and Satyendra Kumar Singh in the order.

According to news reports, Ram Singh, 40, was convicted of raping a four-year-old girl in a tent.

The incident took place on May 31, 2007 near Indore’s ITI ground. Singh, then 25 years old, had lured the girl to his tent by offering her one rupee and raped her, the court order, cited by the reports, said.

He lived near the hut of the girl's family. All of them worked as labourers, the reports added.

NDTV reported that the girl's grandmother found the man raping the minor. Her testimony and medical evidence proved that the girl was indeed raped.

He was arrested in 2007, and sentenced for life by an additional sessions judge (Indore) in April 2009. He had challenged the high court order in May 2009.

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