2 get death, 1 life term for Jigisha’s murder

New Delhi, August 22

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Two convicts in the 2009 Jigisha Ghosh murder case were today awarded death penalty while one escaped with life term, as a Delhi court held that the 28-year-old IT executive was killed in a “cold-blooded, inhuman and cruel manner” and “brutally mauled to death”.

The court said the magnitude and brutality exhibited by the convicts made the case “rarest of rare”, warranting capital punishment for Ravi Kapoor and Amit Shukla. The third offender, Baljeet Malik, was given reprieve from gallows for his good conduct in jail.

The court also imposed varying fines on the convicts, with Kapoor being slapped with a fine of Rs1.2 lakh due to his incapacity to pay, while Shukla and Malik were directed to pay Rs2.8 lakh and Rs5.8 lakh, respectively.

The trio is also facing trial for the murder of Television journalist Soumya Viswanathan, killed a year before Jigisha. While awarding the extreme punishment to Kapoor and Shukla, Additional Sessions Judge Sandeep Yadav said: “They are a threat to society and the magnitude and brutality exhibited by them brings the case within the category of the rarest of the rare.”

“The victim pleaded to convicts not to take her life. She handed over her debit card and other belongings to them besides disclosing the pin number of her debit card to the convicts. However, they were satisfied only by brutally mauling her to death. The convicts behaved in uncivilised and barbaric manner against a helpless girl,” the judge said, pronouncing the order on sentence in a packed court room.

“Gruesome crimes against women are on the rise in the recent years. Any leniency in such cases will send very wrong message in society and encourage criminals like the convicts. Passing appropriate sentence in such cases will go a long way in arresting the increasing trend of crime against women,” the judge said.

The court said out of the total Rs9.8 lakh fine, Rs6 lakh be paid to the victim’s parents, and an adequate compensation amount be decided by the District Legal Service Authority (South).

Advocate Amit Shukla, counsel for Malik and Shukla, said death was not warranted in a case based on circumstantial evidence and he would appeal further in the HC against the verdict. — PTI