Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (SP)

Bengaluru, Jul 21: The state high court on Friday July 20, confirmed the life term imprisonment awarded by a lower court to a person who had smothered a minor girl to death for shouting when being raped. The person who did not get any relief even after going in with an appeal to the high court happens to be Sukumar from Shalininagara in Karkala taluk, Udupi district.

Sukumar in his appeal, confessed that he had raped the said girl for which the subordinate court had awarded him ten years imprisonment. "I have already spent ten years in jail, but I was not driven by the intent to commit this murder. When I tried to sexually use the minor girl, she shouted. To silence her, I stuffed an onion into her mouth, which got stuck in her throat, causing her death. Therefore, the life term sentence awarded me should be cancelled," he appealed.

The doctors had certified in the case that an onion had been forced into the victim's mouth and that she died as her nose and mouth were forcibly sealed. Additional prosecutor of the state, Vijayakumar Majage, who presented the postmortem report, had vehemently argued that Sukumar was a murderer and not merely a rapist.

Judges of the division bench of the high court, Justice R B Budihal and Justice B A Patil, dismissed the appeal and confirmed the sentence handed down by the 50th additional district and sessions court in the city.

Sukumar (29) from Karkala taluk, Udupi district, used to visit a rented house in which his relatives lived in Mico Layout here. In 2007, during his visit, he asked the 12-year-old daughter of the house owner to help him get the key of his relative's house, which was kept inside a window. After the girl opened the door, he cleverly made her go to the kitchen where he raped her. As the girl raised an alarm, he forced an onion into her mouth besides forcefully closing her mouth and nose to silence her, as a result of which the girl died of suffocation.

Sukumar got stuck inside the house as the door of the house got automatically closed and the key fell outside. Sukumar contacted his friends over cellphone and asked them to come there to help him come out. The people in the owner's house, who were searching for the girl, came to know that she had left with Sukumar. When friends of Sukumar got there, the parents of the girl threatened them to reveal the truth. They then entered the house and found that the girl had died.

Mico Layout police who registered the rape and murder case, filed a charge sheet in court, after which the court held Sukumar guilty and ordered him to undergo ten years of imprisonment and life term for murder. He went on appeal against this judgement.