India, Feb. 21 -- Six convicted of sexually assaulting minors have been given the death penalty by West Bengal courts in the past six months, despite the fact that the state's last legal execution for the rape and murder of a juvenile in Kolkata occurred more than 20 years ago.

For killing his family members, another prisoner was also given the execution penalty, bringing the state's total number of death sentences throughout the past six months to seven, reported news agency PTI.

The brutal nature of the rapes and murders committed against girls qualified them under the "rarest of the rare" category, where offenders were prosecuted under the POCSO Act in addition to sections of the IPC and, later, the BNS. In six of the seven instances...