India: Death Penalty Canceled for Rapist and Murderer of 6-Year-Old – Since He’s a Praying Muslim

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That the Indian judiciary has always treated Muslims with kid gloves is an established truth that has manifested itself from time to time in many strange verdicts. In continuation of the tradition of doubling as an apologist for Islam, an Indian judge has commuted the death penalty of Sheik Asif Ali, a convict of rape and murder of a six-year-old girl. An initial Jihad Watch report is here.

The incident occurred on the afternoon of August 21, 2024. The young victim went out to buy chocolates with her minor cousin; her family started worrying when she didn’t return after an hour. They called other villagers and initiated a search. The girl was found lying naked and unconscious by Sheikh Khairuddin’s house. Her family rushed her to a primary health care center, but they referred her to a more extensive medical facility, the SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack. On her way to the hospital, she succumbed to her injuries.

The victim’s cousin disclosed that Sheikh Asif Ali, along with Sheikh Akil Ali, had forcibly taken her away. The family filed a complaint, which led to a case being registered against the accused under Sections 302, 376-D, and 376-A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

The postmortem report on the deceased revealed that one of the perpetrators had gagged her mouth and lifted her by her arms to pull her away. They monstrously raped the 6-year-old child, causing several injuries, and then strangled her to death.

Though the trial court convicted the accused under the Sections of IPC and POCSO, the Orissa High Court acquitted Sheikh Akil Ali of all charges due to “lack of evidence.” In the case of Sheikh Asif Ali, the court stated, “The prosecution failed to establish the charge under section 376-D of the IPC against the appellant Sheikh Asif Ali. He is acquitted of such charge but found guilty under sections Sections 302 (murder), 376-D (gang rape), 376-A (rape leading to death) of the IPC, and Section 6 of the POCSO Act.”

The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO), was enacted in 2012 to provide a robust legal framework for the protection of children from offenses of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and pornography, while safeguarding the interest of the child at every stage of the judicial process. Subsequently, the POCSO Act was amended and made more stringent; the amendment raised the minimum punishment for penetrative assault from 7 to 10 years, and to 20 years if the victim was below 16 years of age, with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, along with a provision for the death penalty for aggravated penetrative assault.

The victim was a six-year-old who was not just gang-raped, but also murdered. The accused was 26 years old. There was abundant reason to give the death sentence to the accused. Instead, the judge chose to give him only life imprisonment. He provided some shocking reasons for commuting Ali’s death sentence to life imprisonment, the primary one being the fact that the accused offering namaz (Islamic daily prayers) many times a day, and had surrendered himself to Allah. While the court admitted that “the child, aged about six years, was killed in a most horrendous, devilish, and barbaric manner, it also observes that the case is based on circumstantial evidence, and there is no material on record that the crime was committed in a pre-planned manner.”

The court also stated: “It seems that both the appellants noticed the deceased in the company of cousin brother while they were returning after purchasing chocolates, and then the deceased was lifted away and she was subjected to rape during which she sustained injuries on different parts of her body and her death was due to shock and hemorrhage as a result of injuries to genital track which were fatal in the ordinary course of nature. No harm has been caused to the minor cousin while lifting away the deceased even though the appellants must have been aware that is likely to disclose their misdeeds before the family members and others.”

To summarize this utter travesty of the judiciary, two men rape and brutally murder a 6-year-old, but instead of the much-deserved death sentence, one gets acquitted; the other one gets to sit in government accommodations and feed off taxpayer money for 14 years, because he is a namaz-offering Muslim who preyed on just one out of the two lonely kids he could have abused and killed. This is a judicial luxury only afforded to Muslim men in India; and this is done repeatedly.

In 2022, the Supreme Court canceled the death sentence that had been given to rape and murder convict Mohd. Firoz by the Madhya Pradesh High Court eight years before. The argument of the Apex court was that “every sinner has a future.” If only Oscar Wilde had known how his much-applauded prose would be misused to grant judicial favors to a man convicted of the rape and murder of a four-year-old.