appellant carrying the victim towards the sugarcane field and who was cited as a witness to the inquest, as PW­2; (iii) one Fatehpur Bahadur, who was part of the search party and who claimed to have seen the appellant leaving the sugarcane field after about half an hour, as PW­3; (iv) the Head Constable Balram Tripathi, the scribe of the First Information Report who registered the FIR, as PW­4; (v) Dr. Mukesh Kumar who conducted the post­mortem, as PW­5; and (vi) the Investigation Officer Shri Rambali Roy as PW­6. 5. During questioning under Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (hereinafter referred to as the “Code”), the appellant denied the charges and claimed that he had been falsely implicated in the case, at the behest of one Mr. Zalim Khan, with a view to grab the property of his mother, who was none other than Zalim Khan’s brother’s daughter. To substantiate this claim, the appellant also examined his mother as DW­1. 6. Holding that the guilt of the appellant stood established beyond reasonable doubt by circumstantial evidence and also holding that it is one of the rarest of rare cases where a six year old girl had been raped and murdered, the Sessions Court convicted 3