Nirbhaya repeat: Man convicted, stares at death penalty

NEW DELHI: Just three years after the Nirbhaya case led to nationwide outrage, the rape and murder of a 33-year-old again shook the city in 2015. It emerged that wooden pieces were shoved inside the woman’s private parts, leading to her death. A three-year trial has now culminated in a rare Delhi court judgment, with the accused being convicted on not one, but two charges: Section 302 (murder) and 376A (rape causing a woman’s death), attracting death penalty as maximum punishment.
The court is yet to pronounce the quantum of punishment. Additional sessions judge Anu Grover Baliga held: “The injuries caused to the prosecutrix during the course of insertion of sticks into her vagina and anus also led to her death and, therefore, the accused is liable to be convicted for the offence punishable under section 376A IPC (sic).” In addition, the fact that the victim was fatally strangulated, according to the postmortem report, made accused Ram Tej liable to be convicted under Section 302 IPC, the court said.
The woman went missing on January 9, 2015. On that day, her husband lodged a missing person’s complaint. On January 10, her body was found lying in the bushes behind Ghitorni Metro station near Chhattarpur. Her clothes, shoes and other belongings were strewn beside the body. Before the body was sent to AIIMS for postmortem, the husband made the identification.
The police found call data records of the victim that showed she had received calls from a particular number on a daily basis. The number turned out to be of Tej's brother, but was being used by the accused, who worked at a local nursery as a gardener. The police claimed that the accused had admitted to his guilt and even said he knew the victim as she lived near his brother’s house. The accused also reportedly told the police that there was a marital discord between the victim and her husband, and he had sympathised with her, gained her trust and had sex with her.
Following a chargesheet, public prosecutor Kamal Akhtar, who was assisted by complainant husband’s counsel, Madhav Khurana, relied on 42 witnesses to prove the accused’s guilt. Tej, on the contrary, refuted all charges, arguing the police had demanded Rs 50,000, which he could not pay and, therefore, he was falsely implicated. He had a plea of alibi for the night of the incident. He also denied that he knew the woman.
Fast-track judge Baliga relied on two “clinching circumstances”: the DNA samples found at the crime scene and the recovery of articles belonging to the victim from the accused. The accused’s claim of alleged tampering of medical specimen was successfully contested by the forensic expert’s opinion. On the court’s query, he clarified that though the accused’s semen was found on the victim’s underwear, no semen stains could not be traced in her vaginal area due to excessive bleeding as a result of assault with wooden sticks.
The defence argued that the photos of the crime showed that the victim might have been gangraped and it was not possible for a single man to rape and murder her. “This court is constrained to note that this doubt being raised by the defence at the fag end of the trial is absolutely baseless and frivolous,” the judge said.