August 8, 2025

Kolkata: A chilling story from Bengal’s West Burdwan district has shocked many. A 42-year-old man was sentenced to death on Wednesday for the horrific crime of raping and murdering his own 14-year-old daughter last year in May. Lawyers present at the court said the decision came from judge Suparna Bandopadhyay. This grim ruling adds to a wave of such verdicts in West Bengal recently. Public prosecutor Somnath Chattoraj shared details of the case, saying the sentence was passed under multiple sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (Pocso). The young girl was strangled to death right at home on May 13, 2023. Her mother found her lifeless body the very next morning and quickly reported it to the police. The postmortem report revealed a horrifying truth: the girl was raped before being killed. "Police found the rope with which he strangulated his daughter after raping her. The pattern of strands in the rope matched with the deep marks found on the victim’s neck," Chattoraj explained. This evidence sealed the fate of the accused. Such severe punishments are becoming more frequent in West Bengal now. For instance, on July 10, a court in north Bengal’s Jalpaiguri district sentenced three men to death for the gang rape and murder of a 15-year-old madrasah student back in 2020. These accused worked at an automobile garage and were known to the victim. In another tragic case, on June 11, the same Jalpaiguri court handed down a death sentence to a 31-year-old man for raping and killing 11-year-old girl in 2023. The girl went missing in September, and her body was later found floating in the Dudwa river. The man was someone familiar to both the girl and her parents. These strong decisions reflect the courts’ zero tolerance for such crimes against children in West Bengal. The recent chain of death sentences aims to send a powerful message that crimes like these will meet the harshest punishment.

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Tags: West bengal, Death sentence, Rape and murder, Minor victim, Pocso act,