Handing out first-ever capital punishment to the “repeat offenders” under the new provision 376 (E) of the rape law that came to be amended after the December 16 2012 gang rape in Delhi, a trial court in Mumbai on Friday sentenced three “common” convicts in the twin Shakti Mills gang-rape cases to death.
A day after she held guilty and convicted the three “common” convicts for their “repeat offences” in the July 31, 2013 telephone operator and August 22, 2013 gang-rape cases, Principle Judge Shalini Phansalkar Joshi awarded capital punishment toVijay Jadhav (19), Mohammad Qasim Shaikh, alias Qasim Bengali (21), and Mohammad
Ansari (28), after noting that there was no scope of reformation of the trio.
She said that three convicts deserved death penalty for repeat offences under Section 376 (E) of the IPC.
In a telling observation, the Judge said: “The gang-rape accused were not only enjoying the act of sexual assault but also the survivor’s helplessness. It was executed in the most gruesome manner with no mercy or show of human dignity to the survivor.”
Averring that the convicts were acting in pursuance of criminal conspiracy as judicially proved, the judge held: “The offense was not spontaneous and was a pre-planned criminal conspiracy. The use of code language ‘shikar aaya hai. shikar par jana hai’ proves that it was pre-planed. It was a cruel act....”
“The argument that accused are very young to be hanged is not maintainable. The brutal and gruesome manner in which they have committed the offence deserves no mercy,” the judge observed.
Earlier, Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam made a strong case for death penalty for the three “common” convicts in the twin gang-rape cases, saying that they were perverts, repeat offenders and they deserved no mercy.
Talking to media persons outside the court, Nikam said: “We presented to the court 10 aggravating circumstances that warranted death sentence.
The convicts were repeat offenders, who gang-raped the two women, and enjoyed the act as they even filmed the incidents. They laughed and physically abused and beat the victims, who were defenceless. The prosecution told the court that the manner in which the threeconvicts conducted themselves clearly reflected their criminal mental attitude and a bent of mind that prompted them to commit such heinous acts on women.”
Jadhav, Bengali and Ansari were among the four convicts who were sentenced to life imprisonment extending “till the remainder of their natural lives” in the telephone operator gang-rape case on March 21. Soon after their sentencing, the prosecution had made an application before the trial court, seeking the invocation of the new section 376 (E) of IPC, which deals with punishment for repeat offenders in rape cases.
The section 376 (E), which is a new provision incorporated in section 376 of IPC (that deals with punishment for rape) reads: “Whoever has been previously convicted of offence punishable under section 376 of 376 (A) or section 376 (D) and is subsequently convicted of an offence punishable under any of the said section shall be punished with imprisonment for life which shall mean imprisonment for the remainder of that person’s natural life or with death.”
After accepting the application made by the prosecution, the court framed an additional charge under section 376 (E) against the three convicts. On their part, the three convicts pleaded not guilty of the additional charge framed against them.
Since three accused in the Shakti Mill gang-rape cases were the same persons, both the cases were inter-linked from the beginning. The three accused were part of a group of vagabonds that allegedly raped the two different girls on July 31, 2013 and August 22 respectively. While the August 22 incident came to light first, the details of the first incident that took place on July 31 came out subsequently.
The photojournalist, working for a Mumbai magazine, was gang-raped in the evening of August 22 by five men under the cover of tall grass and shrubs surrounding the dilapidated remains of the defunct Shakti Mill compound, where she had gone along with her male colleague to take pictures for a magazine story.
The five alleged culprits had fled the scene, after threatening the girl that they would post the photographs taken of her on their mobile phone on a social network site, if either she or colleague complained the matter to the police. However, they were arrested subsequently.
In the July 31 incident, the rape survivor --- who works as a telephone operator with a private firm at Bhandup and lives at Mulund in north-east Mumbai --- had gone to Mahalaxmi, along with her boyfriend, when the accused accosted the two in the Shakti Mill area. like in the photojournalist gang-rape case, the accused tied up the victim’s male friend to a tree and gang-raped the victim girl. It was only a month later that the frightened victim girl, who had gone off to Chhattisgarh along boyfriend after the incident, lodged a complaint with the Bhandup police in north-east Mumbai.
On March 20, five accused — three of whom were common in both the cases --- were convicted for gang raping a 22-year-old photojournalist and an eighteen-year-old telephone operator.
The five convicts are among the seven persons named as accused in the two Shakti Mill rape cases. The two other accused, one each in two cases and both juveniles, are yet to be tried for their alleged involvement in the crime. The trial of the two juvenile accused is set to begin before the Dongri Juvenile Justice Board in the city.
