An Indian court on Friday sentenced to death a 53-year-old man for raping and killing a five- year-old girl in the western state of Maharashtra earlier this year.

Additional Sessions Judge P.H. Mali of the state's Thane district pronounced the death penalty in a speedy trial, after terming the heinous offense as "rarest of the rare".

The case dates back to January this year.

The convict, Dattu Ambo Rokade, lured the victim to his house while she was playing at a field near her residence, as her elder brother and sister were watching TV and her parents were off to work. He then raped the girl before killing her by strangulation and dumping her body in a garbage bin.

Eye-witnesses in the trial told the court that they saw the convict dumping a gunny bag that day. The girl's body was found inside that bag.

Rapes are not uncommon in India.

A five-year-old girl was raped earlier this year by two men in the Indian capital, barely weeks after the horrific and fatal gang rape of a 23-year-old medical student by six men on a moving bus in the national capital had sparked massive public outrage, forcing the Indian government to introduce stricter laws for sexual assaults on women.