A fast-track sessions court in Malegaon has awarded the capital punishment to twenty-four-year-old Vijay Khairnar for the horrific sexual assault and murder of a four-and-a-half-year-old girl in Nashik district. Delivering a comprehensive two-hundred-and-twenty-five-page judgment on Friday, the court categorized the offense as falling squarely within the rarest of rare categories, emphasizing the extreme brutality inflicted upon an innocent child. Alongside the death penalty, the court directed that financial compensation of ten lakh rupees be provided to the victim’s grieving family to support them following the unimaginable loss.
The harrowing incident dates back to November 16, 2025, in Dongrale village, situated within Malegaon taluka. The young child had gone missing in the afternoon while playing outdoors near her residence, sparking frantic search efforts across the rural hamlet by family members and neighbors. Her lifeless body was subsequently discovered dumped in a secluded drainage nullah adjacent to a mobile transmission tower. Forensic and police examinations established that the victim had been abducted, subjected to severe sexual violence, and bludgeoned to death with a heavy stone.
Local law enforcement acted swiftly as public anger erupted across the district, with grief-stricken relatives and villagers gathering outside the local hospital to demand swift justice and stringent punishment for the culprit. Police investigators zeroed in on Khairnar, a local daily-wage laborer residing in the same locality, and arrested him within hours of the crime. Investigative findings revealed that the accused had systematically targeted the child, luring her away from her surroundings with the promise of chocolates before carrying out the heinous assault and lethal attack in the secluded open terrain.
Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam, representing the state, presented a meticulously constructed legal case that relied heavily on scientific corroboration and unbroken chains of circumstantial evidence. In the absence of direct eyewitnesses or surveillance camera footage at the isolated crime scene, the prosecution anchored its arguments on conclusive forensic DNA profiling, forensic matching of clothing and bloodstains, medical post-mortem records, and recovery of evidence directly tying the accused to the location. Over the course of the fast-track trial spanning roughly fifty court hearings, the prosecution examined twenty-four witnesses, including medical practitioners, police forensic experts, and local villagers.
Following the pronouncement of the capital sentence, the special prosecutor noted that the court had meticulously scrutinized the intensity, brutality, and premeditation of the crime alongside the circumstantial evidence to establish guilt beyond all reasonable doubt. He expressed hope that higher judicial forums—including the Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court of India—would take up the case for confirmation on an expedited basis to ensure that the ultimate punishment awarded by the trial court is executed without prolonged delays.
Under statutory criminal procedure guidelines, the capital sentence pronounced by the Malegaon sessions court remains subject to mandatory review and confirmation by the Bombay High Court before it can be enforced. The swift trial and decisive verdict have brought a measure of closure to the victim's family and the local community, serving as a stern reaffirmation of the judicial system's zero-tolerance stance toward heinous crimes committed against defenseless minors.