Hoshiarpur, Sept. 19 -- A special court in Hoshiarpur on Friday awarded the death penalty to Nanke Yadav, a native of Uttar Pradesh, holding him guilty of sexually abusing and subsequently murdering a 5-year-old boy in September last year. Yadav abducted the child on September 9, 2025, while he was playing outside his house in Deep Nagar. The boy's body was recovered from a cremation ground in Purhiran the following day. The court also pronounced other statutory sentences and fines under various sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. The court of additional session judge, fast-track (special court) Manpreet Kaur observed that the nature and gravity of the offence placed it in the "rarest of rare" category, warranting capital punishment. The sentence would be submitted to the Punjab and Haryana high court for confirmation. The judgment came a day before the stipulated time for concluding the legal proceedings. Section 35 of the POCSO Act mandates special courts to complete the trial of a POCSO case within one year from the date of taking cognisance of the offence. The court had on September 15 held the accused guilty of charges under Section 103 of the BNS and Section 6 of the POCSO Act and fixed Friday for hearing arguments on quantum of sentence and final verdict. Additional public prosecutor Nitin Beri and advocate Ashwani Kumar Verma represented the complainant family. The convict was apprised of the sentence through video call as he was not brought to the court due to security reasons. "The case in hand relates to the brutal murder of a five-year-old boy, after commission of sodomy by accused in an extremely brutal, gruesome and diabolical manner. The case comes under the rarest of rare category and a fit case for death sentence. There is no ground for sympathy for the convict," the court stated in its order. The convict was awarded death penalty under Section 103 of the BNS, 10-year rigorous imprisonment with fine of Rs.5,000 under Section 140 (1), seven-year rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs.5,000 under Section 238 of the BNS, 2-year rigorous imprisonment under Section 6 of POCSO Act and five-year rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs.5,000 under 10 of the PCSO Act. The victim's family was awarded Rs.5 lakh compensation under the Punjab government's "victims or their dependents compensation scheme". The victim's father said the verdict had done justice to the family....