The police on Thursday urged a POCSO court here to sentence to death the man convicted in the horrific Aluva child rape and murder case.
During arguments on the quantum of punishment to be given, the prosecution sought the death sentence for Ashwaq Alam, a migrant labourer, for raping and killing a 5-year-old girl from Bihar.
Special POCSO (Protection Of Children from Sexual Offences) court judge K Soman, who had convicted Alam on November 4, will pronounce the sentence on November 14, Public Prosecutor G Mohanraj said.
After arguments on the sentence concluded, Mohanraj met reporters outside the court and said that the prosecution argued that the case comes under the rarest-of-rare category and therefore the highest punishment of the land should be given to the convict.
The defence on the other hand cited the age of the convict and the possibility of his reformation as reasons for a lesser sentence, the prosecutor said.
Alam himself claimed in court that the other accused were let go and only he was caught in the case and beyond that he did not make any other submission, the prosecutor said.
The court had found Alam guilty of all 16 offences in the charge sheet.
Of the 16, five offences are punishable by death, the prosecutor had said earlier.
The minor girl was brutally raped and strangulated to death on July 28 after she was abducted from her rented house here.
The body of the girl was found dumped in a stack in a marshy area behind a local market in nearby Aluva and the accused was arrested based on CCTV visuals.
