A Delhi court has awarded rigorous life imprisonment to a man for killing a 11-year-old boy working in his factory here.
The court, in its judgement, clarified that 32-year-old convict Kalimullah should not be considered for grant of any remission till he undergoes an actual sentence of 20 years and also imposed a total fine of Rs 1.07 lakh on him.
Besides Kalimullah, the court also sentenced three other convicts -- Khalilullah, 30, Mohammad Shabbir, 31, and Abdul Haseeb, 63, to three year jail after holding them guilty for the offence of destruction of evidence and imposed a fine of Rs 2,000 each on them.
It said the convicts had trafficked the minors from remote areas of Bihar to Delhi on the pretext of providing them good education, but they were forcibly pushed into hazardous work and tortured. One of the children could not bear the brutality and succumbed to the injuries.
"I may observe that every child has a right to a joyful childhood and of growing up in safe and nurturing environment with the protection of family and society. Child labour is a serious problem which is intimately related to extreme poverty and illiteracy.
"In the present case after the death of the child, other children were rescued and it was found that they all came from remote villages of Bihar and belonged to extremely poor families of total have-nots who do not have any other means to raise their income except the human asset (child) to invest a bid to supplement it," Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Kamini Lau said.
According to the prosecution, in April 2011, Kalimullah deployed the victim in his factory and used to brutally assault the minor.
Kalimullah had also allegedly committed unnatural offences with the minor and had inflicted injuries on him with a gas iron pipe, wooden stick and other articles.
