Sections 376, 364, 366A, and 201 of the Code are directed to run consecutively. 2. The case of the prosecution is that the appellant subjected the deceased R to rape, killed her by strangulation, and then disposed of her body, tied in a gunny bag, into the stream named Bennihalla. As there are no eye witnesses to the commission of the offences, in order to prove these postulations, the prosecution has relied on three-fold circumstances: (i) that the appellant took away R from a neighbour’s house on 28th December 2010; (ii) that the appellant was last seen by certain witnesses carrying R and a gunny bag towards the Bennihalla stream; and (iii) that based on the disclosure statement of the appellant on 1st January 2011, the dead body of R was recovered in a gunny bag from Bennihalla. 3. R, a girl aged 5 years and 2 months, was living with her maternal grandfather Rangappa in village Khanapur, Taluka Nargund, District Gadag, Karnataka while her parents worked in Mangalore, Karanataka. Rangappa’s neighbours Venkavva Patil (PW-5) and her nephew Ajit Patil (PW-6) have testified that on 28th December 2010 at about 6:30 pm, R had come to their house to watch TV. At about 6:30 pm the appellant had also come to their house. He was talking to R and took her with him on the pretext of buying her biscuits. Hanamappa (PW-4), who is the brother of Rangappa, Criminal Appeal Nos. 1473-1474 of 2017 Page 2 of 30