India, March 13 -- The Bombay High Court on March 6 refused to suspend the sentence of a man convicted of raping and killing a five-year-old girl in 2019, noting the crime as "brutal and horrific."

A division bench of Justices A.S. Gadkari and Kamal Khata said the evidence on record prima facie indicated that the minor victim had been sexually assaulted and murdered.

According to the prosecution, the incident took place on February 2, 2019, when the accused, Mehandi Hasan Shaikh, allegedly abducted the child while she was sleeping with her parents on a footpath in Mahim.

Police were alerted after a child was lying in a lane behind a showroom nearby. She was taken to the Mahim police station but was declared dead.

Investigators relied ...