6-year-old's death: Gujarat ex-principal gets 10 years for culpable homicide

A court in Gujarat’s Dahod district has sentenced a former government school principal to 10 years of imprisonment for allegedly causing the death of a 6-year-old girl student in September last year.

Besides sentencing Govind Nat, the then school principal of a state-run school in Singvad taluka, on Wednesday, additional sessions judge (Limkheda) H.H. Thakkar also slapped a fine of Rs 2 lakh on him.

While Nat was convicted of wrongful confinement and “culpable homicide not amounting to murder” under section 105-2 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, he was of rape and murder as charged by the prosecution, his lawyer Ajay Chauhan said.

“The court has rejected rape and murder charges levelled against my client by the police. He was sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment on charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder under section 105-2 of the BNS. We are happy with the judgment,” Chauhan told reporters.

He said the police added rape charges after the child’s death under pressure from political parties and relied solely on circumstantial evidence.

Chauhan said they would challenge the order in the high court, claiming that the evidence to convict Nat of culpable homicide was also not sufficient to prove the case beyond doubt.

In September last year, Nat, the then principal of a government-run primary school in Singvad taluka, was arrested for allegedly killing a six-year-old girl student after she resisted his attempt to sexually molest her, according to the police.

Dahod police had claimed that Nat, who was passing by in his car, agreed to take the victim to their school at her mother’s request. On the way to their school, he tried to sexually molest her. When the child resisted, he covered her mouth and nose to stop her from screaming, thereby causing her to lose consciousness, Dahod superintendent of police Rajdeepsinh Zala had said then.

"The principal reached the school and parked his car with the girl’s body inside. In the evening, he took out the body and dumped it behind the school building. He then planted her schoolbag and slippers in her classroom,” Zala had said.

When the girl did not return home after school, her parents and relatives launched a search and found her lying unconscious inside the school compound, following which police launched a probe and arrested Nat.