A Pune special court on Monday convicted three prime accused in the much-discussed case involving the kidnap, gang-rape and murder of an IT software engineer Nayana Phatak-Pujari in 2009.
Eight years after Nayana, then 28-years old, was kidnapped, robbed and gang-raped inside a car, Pune’s Additional Sessions Judge ll Yenkar held Yogesh Raut, Mahesh Thakur and Vishwas Kadam of charges under sections 376 (rape), 302 (murder), 120-B (criminal conspiracy) 361 (kidnapping) of IPC.
The court will pronounce quantum of sentence on the three convicts on Tuesday. The maximum sentence the three convicts may face for the offences committed by them is either death penalty or imprisonment for life in prison.
Another accused, Rajesh Pandurang Choudhari, who had been arrested as an accomplice of the convicts but later turned an approver, shall be eligible for a pardon.
Talking after media persons after the court convicted three accused, Special public prosecutor Harshad Nimbalkar said: We have conclusively established the various charges against all the accused and the court has accepted our arguments.. Considering the brutal manner in which the victim was gang-raped and killed falls under the category of rarest of the rare case, we have demanded death sentence for the convicts".
On their part, the victim’s husband, Abhijit Pujari and her younger sister have also demanded that the convicts be handed out capital punishment for the heinous crime they perpetrated against Nayana.
It may be recalled that on October 7, 2009, Nayana (28), a software engineer with IT firm in Kharadi went missing. Two days later --on October 9, 2009, her body was found in the Zarewadi forest area in Khed tehsil of Pune district.
While Raut used to work as a driver with Synechron – the same IT firm where Phatak-Pujari worked, Chaudhari was working as a security guard there, and later chose to turn an approver in the case.
On the night of October 7, 2009, Raut offered lift to Nayana after the latter leaving for home completing her duty at Synechron IT company in Kharadi , a suburb of Pune.
The investigations revealed that the then three accused and now convicts had kidnapped Nayana and raped inside the car. They even robbed her of Rs 61000 using her ATM card. She was in the car for six hours, before she was murdered. The accused smashed her face using a huge boulder to destroy the evidence and dumped her body in the forests of Zarewadi from where it was recovered after two days.
Raut, who was arrested within months after the incident, escaped while being escorted to the Sassoon Hospital here on September 17, 2011, for treatment. He was later re-arrested from the temple town of Shirdi in May 2013.
While the Persecution examined as many as 37 witnesses were examined during the trial, the defence the defence another 13 witnesses.
The trial that went on for more than seven years saw four different judges hearing the matter.
During the course of the trial, accused-turned-approver Chaudhari told the court he had been threatened by Raut, Thakur and Kadam with direct consequences if he revealed their plan to eliminate the victim woman. later, an “extremely remorseful” Chaudhari mustered courage and agreed to turn an approver in the case.