In Brief
A 35-year-old man (Pappu) was convicted of raping and murdering a 7-year-old girl after enticing her to pluck lychees from a farm. The victim was last seen in his company; her body was later recovered from a riverbank location where the appellant led police. The Supreme Court upheld his conviction based on circumstantial evidence but commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment with no parole for 30 years. The Court held that while the crime was heinous, the appellant's lack of prior convictions, poor socio-economic background, good prison conduct, and prospect for reformation precluded capital punishment despite the crime's abhorrent nature.
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