Quantum of sentence to be pronounced on June 1
Eight months after a 32-year-old woman was sexually assaulted and brutalised to death at Andheri’s Saki Naka locality in north Mumbai, a Mumbai fast-track court on Monday convicted 45-year-old migrant driver from Uttar Pradesh, in the sensational murder case.
Holding the accused Mohan Chauhan of the charges of rape, murder and offences under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, Special judge HC Shende of the City Civil & Sessions Court at Dindoshi said tht he would pronounce the quantum of sentence on June 1.
On the intervening night of September 9 and September 10, 2021, a 32-year-old pavement dweller was found lying injured at Saki Naka. She was taken to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)-run Rajawadi Hospital, where she passed away on September 11.
The investigations revealed that the victim was raped and brutalised inside an open tempo parked off the Rashid Compound off the Chandivali Studios at Saki Naka in north Mumbai. After the rape, the accused had inserted an iron road in her private parts rupturing her intestine and left her to die.
A watchman alerted the Mumbai Police main control room about a man beating up a woman. Immediately, a police team rushed within 10 minutes, found the woman in a pool of blood and rushed to the Rajawadi Hospital where she died 28 hours later.
It may be recalled that within 24 hours after the horrific incident which had caused a nation-wide furore, the accused Chauhan was arrested as he was attempting to flee to his native place Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh.
The incident had revived the memories of the 2012 Delhi gangrape and murder and caused a huge outrage.
After taking serious cognisance of the shocking incident, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray had ordered the city police to complete the investigations within a month and file a charge-sheet in the case immediately afterwards. The state government had appointed Raja Thakare as special public prosecutor for the case.
At that time, the chief minister had said: “Special prosecutors should be appointed tomorrow itself, without waiting for the case to be admitted in the court. The harshest punishment should be sought. We have to present a classic example of speedy justice, so that no one will dare to do such an completed the investigations into the much-discussed Sakinaka rape-and-murder within just 18 days of the incident, the Mumbai police on September 28, 2021 filed a 345-page comprehensive charge-sheet against the prime accused Mohan Chauhan for allegedly raping and murdering a 32-year-old woman in the small hours of September 10.
The charge-sheet contained the statement of the watchman, other witnesses who had seen the victim and the accused together, the medical teams which attempted to save her and the relatives of the accused.
During the trial, the prosecution examined a total of 37 witnesses in the case. Among other things, the police had relied on footage of CCTV cameras in the area of crime.
