4-year-old's father seeks death penalty for accused

The father of a four-year-old girl, who was raped and killed in Quepem town of Goa, has refused to perform the final rites of the body till his demand for justice is met.

He demanded that the 22-year-old accused should be given the death penalty.

"I want justice. I will not perform final rites on her body till I get justice," said the girl's father Motiurahman Khan, a businessman living in Kurla (Mumbai). He refused to accept the body after postmortem, which confirmed rape and death due to strangulation.

"I have told the police that the accused should be put to death. If he is let scot-free, he will continue committing such crimes after his release from jail," the distraught father said.

He alleged that the Goa police were not interested in finding the girl on May 20 when a missing complaint was lodged.

"It was only after the police commissioner from Mumbai rung his counterpart in Goa that the investigations took up pace," he claimed.

The accused, Dipak Kumar, a labourer hailing from Bihar, had allegedly raped and killed the girl on May 20.

The victim was on vacation at her grandparent's place in Quepem town, 80 km away from Panaji, when the accused lured her to the under-construction site.

The accused raped her and later killed her, fearing that she will reveal the incident to her grandparents.

police arrested the accused on May 22 and he has been booked under the Goa Children's Act, 2003 for raping, killing the girl and also trying to destroy the evidence.