Shimla court sentences three men to death for abducting, murdering four-year-old

Shimla: It’s gallows for the three persons who kidnapped and killed four-year-old Yug Gupta, their neighbour, after enticing him with a chocolate some four years ago.

Shimla District and Sessions Judge Virender Singh on Wednesday pronounced the verdict awarding capital punishment to all the three convicts — Chander Sharma, Tajender and Vikrant — for murdering the child after failing to get ransom.

The victim’s parents and grandmother were in tears when the sentence was pronounced.

The court had declared them killers on 6 August.

Yug’s skeletal remains were recovered from a municipal water supply tank in August 2016, two years after he was reported missing. The child had been tortured, starved and forced to consume liquor before he was thrown into the tank.

The police had charged three youths, who were the victim’s neighbours, with murder. They had been in police custody since their arrest in August 2016.

A chargesheet filed by the Himachal Pardesh police’s Crime Investigation Department (CID) on 25 October, 2017, said the child had been missing from his residence since 14 June, 2014.

The accused kept on demanding the ransom even after killing the child, said the CID. On 27 June, 2016, the family received a ransom letter demanding Rs 3.6 crore. This was followed by three more ransom letters.

An angry crowd had thrashed the two accused, Chander Sharma and Tajinder Singh, in August 2017 at the district court complex when they were taken there for a court hearing.

The state capital had witnessed demonstrations and candlelight marches after the crime.