A Delhi court on Monday sentenced to death two of three men convicted+for the abduction and murder of IT executive Jigisha Ghosh in 2009. The third convict was sentenced to life in jail.
Convicts Ravi Kapoor and Amit Shukla were sentenced to death and Baljeet Malik to life term.
“To be hanged by neck till death,” Additional Sessions Judge Sandeep Yadav said, while awarding death to convicts Ravi Kapoor and Amit Shukla.
The judge also observed that gruesome crimes against women were on the rise and any leniency to the criminals would send a wrong message to society.
“The offence was committed in a brutal, cold blooded and cruel manner. The victim was helpless and remained in captivity for hours and the convicts brutally mauled her to death. It was an uncivilised act done in a barbaric manner.
“The magnitude and brutality of the crime makes it fall in the category of rarest of rare,” the judge said.
The three convicts are also accused of murdering television journalist Soumya Vishwanathan on September 30, 2008 while she was returning home from her office.
Jigisha, 28, was working with Hewitt Associate Pvt Ltd as an operations manager, was abducted and killed on March 18, 2009, after she was dropped near her home in Vasant Vihar area of South Delhi by her official cab around 4 am.
The trial had begun on April 15, 2010 with examination of her father as the first prosecution witness.
The court had framed charges against the accused under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Arms Act, dealing with murder, criminal conspiracy, abduction, robbery, forgery and using firearms.
The recovery of the weapon allegedly used in the murder of Jigisha also led to the cracking of the Soumya murder case.
