After the victim's death, the Gujarat government made provisions for the family to take back the body to their native village in Jharkhand, with a Gujarat police team escorting the ambulance. (File)NEARLY TWO years after a minor girl died at a Vadodara hospital following a sexual assault in Bharuch, a 36-year-old man on a death row for her rape and murder died at the same hospital on Monday.The convict suffered a “heart attack” at Vadodara Central Jail on Monday and was taken to hospital, where he died during treatment, Vadodara Central Jail authorities said.The case had sent shockwaves across Gujarat in December 2024, with the brutality of the crime drawing comparisons with the 2012 Delhi gangrape case. The victim, the daughter of a migrant labourer family from Jharkhand, had gone missing on December 16. She was later found critically injured in an isolated area and admitted to hospital. She died on December 23.The convict was arrested from his home within hours of the crime on December 16, 2024. During the investigation, he reportedly admitted to sexually assaulting the child and inflicting grievous injuries on her private parts with an iron rod. The state government pursued a speedy trial in the case. Proceedings began in February 2025, and the sessions court delivered its verdict in the first week of May 2025.The trial in the case – which brought back haunting memories of the 2012 Delhi gangrape, which coincidentally also occurred on December 16 that year – was completed in just 72 days after the charges were framed, led by Special Public Prosecutor and Bharuch District Government Pleader P B Pandya. In the submissions before the court, Pandya had emphasised on the “barbaric” manner in which the victim had been injured in the sexual assault, with the accused inflicting bite and knife injuries on her face as well as inflicting internal injuries by inserting a sharp object in her private parts that turned to be fatal, even after the victim underwent multiple surgeries.Pandya also submitted to the court, the medical, circumstantial and technical evidence, CCTV cameras as well as the forensic evidence gathered from the spot of the crime during the reconstruction. The weapons used to injure the victim were also recovered. A total of 38 prosecution witnesses deposed in the case and not a single witness turned hostile. Moreover, the dying declaration of the minor also proved crucial in the case.In the submissions considered by the court, the prosecution also stressed that “even a double death sentence awarded to the accused would not suffice”. The prosecution also submitted that despite being a married man and a father of a daughter, the accused had committed “brutal, inhuman assault” on the victim.Story continues below this adThe case also led to the hospital turning into a political pitch. Beginning with the Opposition parties, including Jharkhand’s Minister of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj from the Congress, Dipika Pandey Singh, several leaders had visited the victim, attacking the ruling BJP for the “lawlessness” and the “rise of crimes against women” in the state. Seven-term Bharuch BJP MP Mansukh Vasava as well as MLA Ritesh Vasava also visited the hospital with Vasava also handing out a personal cheque of Rs 1 lakh to the family. Dediapada MLA and AAP leader Chaitar Vasava as well as the then Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee President Shaktisinh Gohil also visited the hospital and lashed out at the state government.After the victim’s death, the Gujarat government made provisions for the family to take back the body to their native village in Jharkhand, with a Gujarat police team escorting the ambulance. Aditi Raja is an Senior Assistant Editor with The Indian Express, stationed in Vadodara, Gujarat, wi... Read More Tags:Vadodara