New Delhi, 14 December (H.S.): President Droupadi Murmu rejected the mercy petition of Ravi Ashok Ghumare, convicted for the kidnapping, rape, and murder of a two-year-old girl in Maharashtra’s Jalna district in 2012, marking the third such rejection since she assumed office on July 25, 2022.

The decision, dated November 6, 2025, was disclosed by Rashtrapati Bhavan on Sunday, closing the final legal avenue for Ghumare, who remains on death row. The horrific crime unfolded on March 6, 2012, when Ghumare, then 32 and reportedly intoxicated, lured the victim—a fruit seller’s daughter—with chocolates near a temple in Indiranagar locality before subjecting her to prolonged sexual assault and strangulation over four to five hours inside his home.

A Jalna sessions court convicted him under IPC Sections 363 (kidnapping), 376 (rape), 377 (unnatural offences), and 302 (murder), imposing the death penalty in September 2015; the Bombay High Court upheld it in 2016.

In a landmark 2:1 majority verdict on October 3, 2019, the Supreme Court affirmed the capital punishment, with Justice Surya Kant emphasizing Ghumare’s utter lack of control over “carnal desires” and his transgression of “all natural, social, and legal limits” in “ruthlessly finishing” a life yet to bloom.

The bench described the act as evidence of a “dirty and perverted mind,” corroborated by DNA matches, medical evidence of forcible assault, and Ghumare’s failure to explain incriminating circumstances under Section 106 of the Evidence Act.

This presidential rejection underscores India’s evolving judicial stance on “rarest of rare” cases involving extreme brutality against children, where mercy pleas often falter against overwhelming evidence of depravity.

Ghumare’s execution now awaits procedural formalities, signaling zero tolerance for such monstrosities.

---------------

Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar