The Supreme Court on Friday upheld the death sentence awarded to an accused for raping and later killing two minor girls in December 1999 in Satara district of Maharashtra.

Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice P Sathasivam concluded that the crime, perpetrated on minors who were barely five and 10 falls within the “rarest of rare” category of crimes. “The convict deserves no leniency,” said the Bench dismissing accused Mohan Anna Chavan’s petition challenging the Bombay High Court’s September 2002 ruling.

Chavan, a labourer working in Mumbai, was at his village, Beghar Vasti, on the morning of December 13, 1999, when he went shopping with his daughter for groceries. On his way home, he ran into Neelam, 10 and Gauri, 5. As they knew Chavan, the girls asked him for sweets.

At this, Chavan sent his daughter home, and lured the girls to a desolate spot where he raped and killed them.

He subsequently threw the body of one girl into a dry well and hid the body of the other behind the bushes.

After he returned home the next morning, his neighbours’ and the girls father enquired about the girls. Upon being beaten by them, he confessed to the crimes and was handed over to the police.