Mostakin Sardar, the 19-year-old man sentenced to death in a swift trial for the rape and murder of a minor girl in West Bengal’s South 24 Parganas district, has appealed against the verdict in the Calcutta High Court, arguing that the case was not among “the rarest of rare” ones.
“The alleged crime is heinous, but since it is not rarest of rare case, we are challenging the order of the lower court,” Sardar’s counsel, Habibur Rehman, said in the court.
A division bench led by Justice Debangsu Basak admitted Sardar’s appeal and stayed the Rs 50,000 fine imposed on him by the lower court.
Speaking to The Indian Express, Rehman said, “The law states that thousands of criminals may not get punished, but no innocent should be punished for a crime they have not committed. Mostakin is innocent.”
Rehman alleged that Sardar had not been allowed to participate in the lower court proceedings. “To speed up the trial, 36 witnesses were examined in 31 days. A counsel was provided by the district legal aid, but due to such a speedy trial, proper justice was not delivered. This case does not fall under the rarest-of-rare category,” he said.
In December 2024, a POCSO court sentenced Sardar to death for the October 4 rape and murder of the girl. The conviction came just 61 days after the crime, setting a precedent for swift justice in the state. When the minor girl was returning home, Mostakin Sardar accosted, raped and killed her, the court had pointed out.
Two and a half hours after her family filed a missing-person complaint at the local police station that night, Sardar was arrested on the basis of eyewitness accounts and CCTV footage. A seven-member police team was formed to ensure a thorough and expedited investigation.
Amid the furore over the incident, which came less than two months after the rape and murder of a trainee doctor at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee set a three-month deadline for the investigation, urging immediate action and emphasising that “a criminal has no identity”.