Mumbai: A session court on Tuesday awarded life sentence to Vishal Shrivastav (28), who holds a degree in hotel management but was unemployed at the time of incident, for killing a three-year-old girl and her grandmother in 2011 and robbing their home of valuables.
Sessions judge, Salman Azmi had convicted Shrivastav last month but pronouncement on his quantum of punishment was pending.
The judge on Tuesday awarded him life sentence each for both the murders said public prosecutor Mangesh Arote. However, both the life sentence would go concurrently. The judge has also imposed a fine of Rs 15,000 on him.
Mr Arote and advocate Ganesh Iyer, intervener on behalf of the family of deceased, had sought for capital punishment.
“I had argued that the accused chose to kill the three-year-old child despite the fact that even if she would have been left alive she wouldn’t have been able to identify him in future as the person who killed the old lady. This shows the cruelty and brutality which puts this case in the category of rarest of rare case and hence he should be awarded death sentence,” said advocate Arote.
The defence lawyer on the other hand had contended that the case does not fall under the category of rarest of rare case and hence the convict should be awarded life sentence. After hearing arguments the judge sentenced Shrivastav to suffer imprisonment for life.
