Image showing a gavel (for representation).
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Gurugram: A local court on Friday sentenced a suspected serial predator to life imprisonment for the rape and murder of a 6-year-old girl after kidnapping her from the Civil Lines area here in 2017, police said.
Additional District and Sessions Judge Ashwini Kumar also fined 26-year-old Sunil Rs 2.5 lakh.
Sunil, a native of Ganj in Uttar Pradesh, was originally arrested in November 2018 during a probe into another case of rape and murder of a three-year-old girl in Gurugram.
During interrogation, he revealed that in the previous seven years he had killed at least 15 girls in Gurugram, Delhi, Gwalior, and Jhansi.
He claimed that he used to mostly target girls going to the 'bhandaras' (public feast). He would kidnap them, and then rape and kill them, said police.
The victim's case was represented pro bono by advocates Dr Anju Rawat Negi and Kulbhushan Bhardwaj of NGO Farishte Group.
Negi said that on January 6, 2017, a Madhya Pradesh-native had approached Civil Lines Police Station and filed a complaint alleging his six years old daughter had gone missing when she was out to collect 'prasad' from a Peer Baba bhandara.
On January 25, 2017, the girl's body was found in a water tank in Drona Park at Rajiv Chowk. Postmortem revealed she was raped and strangled.
Consequent to the finding, police constituted a Special Investigation Team.
Negi said Sunil was served a death sentence in another case, and some cases were still pending.
The Legal Services Authority was asked to give a compensation of Rs 10 lakh to the victim's kin.