Madras HC upholds death sentence of man convicted for killing college girl, lover
Chennai: The Madras high court has upheld the death sentence awarded to a 30-year-old accused for committing double murder, a murder for gain and another for lust of flesh.
Answering the referred trial by the Principal District and Sessions Judge, Theni against the accused Kattavellai alias Devakar, a division bench comprising Justices R.Subbiah and B.Pugalendhi said, “We hold that there can be no doubt that the entire occurrence resulting in the murder of a young girl will fall within the rarest of rare category propounded by the Supreme Court. For having committed such gruesome, inhuman, barbaric and heinous offence, the accused cannot be imposed with any other punishment other than death sentence and therefore, we are inclined to confirm the death sentence imposed by the trial court on the accused”.
The case of the prosecution was that Ezhil Muthalvan who was pursuing his first B.A degree at Theni and Kasthuri, who was pursuing her B.E loved each other. On May 14, 2011, they went to Surti falls and while they were sitting, the accused threatened them with aruval and demanded that the jewels worn by her be entrusted to him. When Ezhil resisted the accused cut his both side next with aruval and murdered him. When Kasthuri attempt to flee away, the accused chased her, gagged her nose and mouth with a towel and made her to suffocate. Thereafter, the accused forcibly raped her besides he cut her hands and legs brutally, which resulted in her death.
After that, he robbed her gold chain, handbag and them fled away from the scene of occurrence.
State Public Prosecutor A.Natarajan submitted that it was a case of circumstantial evidence, however, all the circumstances projected by the prosecution were proved without any missing links.
They were, missing of the deceased person, death of the deceased was homicidal, last seen theory, test identification parade, rape by the accused and motive and recovery of gold jewels and weapon and DNA test report confirming that the blood samples of the accused matches the vaginal swab test of the girl.
Concurring with his submissions, the bench said the circumstances projected by the prosecution, in its considered opinion, formed a complete chain and it unerringly pointed towards the guilt of the accused. "We firmly hold that the offences were committed by none other than the accused in this case. There is no controversy that the murders of the boy and girl and the robbery and rape of girl ad taken place in one and the same occurrence. Therefore, the person, who committed the robbery and rape, had committed the murders of the boy and girl as well. From the recovery of the stolen articles, and the DNA reports, the presumption under the provisions of the Evidence Act clearly goes in favour of the prosecution. The said legal presumption also duly corroborates the other evidences so as to hold that this accused alone committed the murder of the boy and robbery, rape and murder of the girl, the bench added.
