New Delhi, Feb 27 (IANS): Saying a "girl child is to be worshipped and not raped", a fast track court here sentenced a man to life imprisonment for raping and sodomising his minor daughter.

Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Virender Bhat, also slapping a fine of Rs.60,000, held that the crime committed by the convict, being the father of the victim, was intensely grave, serious and barbaric in nature.

The convict would not be entitled to any clemency till he spends at least 20 years in jail, the court ruled.

"There is no crime more heinous and ghastly than the present one and no other crime can be more humiliating and disgraceful for a man than act of seducing his own daughter," the order stated.

"The girl child is considered incarnation of Mata Lakshmi in a household. Hindu religion ordains us to worship the girl child as the manifestation of Goddess Lakshmi. There is a tradition prevalent in the Hindus to worship minor girls on the last day of Navratras which is known as 'Kanjak Puja'."

"The girl child is to be worshipped and not raped. Sexual assault upon a girl child is the most sinful, barbaric and savage atrocity and hence not only highly deplorable but severely punishable. One fails to imagine how a person would think of ravishing a minor, innocent girl and that too when the girl is his own daughter who, in fact, deserves to be worshipped as a form of Goddess Durga."

In September 2012, the mother of the child registered a case against her husband, a resident of Najafgarh, alleging that he had raped and sodomised their minor daughter several times.

She told police that her child was complaining of stomach pain past several days and she had consulted various doctors but there was no relief to the minor. After noticing swelling in the child's body, she again took her to doctor who told her that the child was sexually assaulted.

Police had said that the nine-year-old child then told her mother about her father's act and a case was registered against him.

"The crime committed by the convict depicts extreme form of depravity and brutality on his part. He has ravished his own daughter, who had yet not crossed the single digit age. A father is the protector of the honour and dignity of his daughter and a girl child looks towards her parents for every kind of help and assistance in case of adversity," said the court.

"However, in the present case, the father himself has become the tormentor and has perpetrated the heinous crime of rape upon his own daughter."