Five persons were today awarded death sentence by a court in Keonjhar district for gangrape and murder of a minor girl over three years ago.
Additional District and Sessions Judge, Champua, Jadumani Mishra pronounced the death penalty for the five persons for gangraping and killing the 13-year-old girl in a forest near Belkundi village under Barbil police station jurisdiction on August 1, 2012.
The girl, a class 8th student in the Municiality High School at Barbil, was returning home from tuition when seven persons forcibly took her away to a nearby forest and gangraped her, the prosecution said.
When the girl did not return, the family members and others carried out a search and her body bearing injury marks was found a little away from the village.
While five of the accused persons - Mata Munda, Mangal Purty, Jiten Munda, Biswanath and Harjit Singh - were arrested two others are still at large.
