Nagpur: In a significant development President Draupadi Murmu has rejected the mercy petition of Vasant Sampat Dupare, convicted of raping and murdering a four-year-old girl in Wadi area of Nagpur. This development makes him the second convict to be executed in Nagpur Jail after Yakub Memon, the main accused in the 1993 Mumbai blasts.
The Supreme Court had on May 3, 2017 rejected the review plea of murder convict Vasant Dupare and upheld the death sentence. On March 28, 2023, he filed a mercy petition with the President.
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This incident took place in the Wadi area on April 3, 2008. Vasant used to visit the girl’s house, who lived next door to him. On the day of the incident, Vasant lured the four-year-old girl with chocolate. He raped her and then brutally murdered her by crushing her with a stone.
The Nagpur Additional Sessions Court on February 23, 2012 had awarded the death sentence for this shocking act. The Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court also upheld the death sentence on November 26, 2014 without showing any mercy to Dupare.
Dupare had challenged that sentence in the Supreme Court. At that time, a bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra of the Supreme Court had upheld Vasant Dupare’s death sentence in 2014. Meanwhile, Dupare filed a review petition in the Supreme Court that the death sentence should be reconsidered. It was heard before a full bench of Justice Dipak Misra, Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman and Justice Uday Lalit. However, Dupare’s petition was rejected by the Supreme Court in 2017 stating that capital punishment would be appropriate to curb such perverted incidents and punish the criminals.
After picking up the four-year-old girl in front of her house in Wadi area on April 3, 2008, she was taken to Matanagar area of Khadgaon in the afternoon. On the same night, the police received intelligence that the accused Vasant was roaming in Gaddigodam area. The police arrested and interrogated him. After that he showed the incident site at Khadgaon that same night. In this investigation, it was revealed that the child was raped and killed by crushing her with a stone. Not only that, but she was also buried.
A case was registered against Vasant Dupare in Wadi police station. After being arrested by the police, Dupare is confined in Nagpur Central Jail. In 2012, he was lodged in the Fasi Yard of the jail after the session court awarded him the death sentence. Sources informed that he will be hanged after receiving the order of execution from the President’s Secretariat.
