Nearly three years after the brutal gangrape and murder of a 20-year-old student at Kamduni Village in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district, a city court on Saturday sentenced three convicts to death and three others to life imprisonment.
Additional Sessions Judge Sanchita Sarkar found three convicts Saiful Ali, Ansar Ali and Aminul Ali guilty under Sections 376(d), 376A, 302, and 120B of the IPC — of gangrape, inflicting severe injury causing death to a woman and criminal conspiracy — before awarding them the maximum sentence.
Other three culprits Imanul Islam, Aminul Islam and Bhola Naskar — awarded life imprisonment till death — were found guilty under Sections 376(d), 120B and 201(causing disappearance of evidence).
The sheer ferocity of the rape-and-murder, which had taken place seven months after the Nirbhaya incident in Delhi, had left Bengal in deep shock and hit the national headlines prompting large sections of people to hit the streets demanding exemplary punishment for the convicts.
The judgment has been passed under the amended post-Nirbhaya laws. While one accused died in incarceration, two others Rafiqul Islam and Nur Ali were acquitted on Thursday on account of lack of evidence against them.
The second year BA student - returning after appearing for an examination at her college on June 7, 2013 - was pulled into a farm by the accused when she was walking back home at Kamduni, 50 km from Kolkata, along a deserted road after alighting from a bus. She was subsequently gangraped and murdered. Her mutilated body was found the next morning in a corner of the farm.
“So brutal was the attack that her legs were torn apart even as she refused to cooperate,” said sources, adding that her tormentors raped her several times, inflicting severe injuries to her private parts.
“Hope this judgment will go a great distance in bolstering the judicial safeguard against ghastly crimes against women,” said Anindya Raut, the State lawyer, adding they got what they had wanted.
Defence lawyer Firoze Edulji, however, said they had enough grounds to seek and get a reprisal from the High Court. “We will move the High Court in a week’s time” he said.
The family of the victim, including her brother, who were getting constant threats from the other side said they were happy with the judgment but added they would also move the higher court against thosewho were acquitted apparently on account of their political clout.
The convicts remained nonchalant throughout even as the Judge read out the order, the lawyers said. One of them Ansar even hit the brother of the victim on Thursday with his sandal and threatened to kill him.