Chennai: The Madras high court has upheld a lower court order sentencing three persons to life imprisonment for the murder of a 23-year-old techie at Siruseri here on February 13, 2014.
A Division Bench comprising Justices S.Nagamuthu and V.Bharathidasan dismissed the appeals filed by Ram Mandal, Uttam Mandal and Ujjal Mandal, challenging an order of the Mahila court in Chengalpattu dated November 28, 2014, awarding life sentence to them.
Holding the prosecution has proved beyond any doubt by means of cogent and convincing circumstantial evidences that the three accused alone were perpetrators of the crime, the Bench confirmed the life sentence awarded to the accused.
The court also directed the Superintendent of Police, Kancheepuram, to pay Rs 2 lakh as compensation to parents of the deceased from the Tamil Nadu Victim Compensation scheme.
The prosecution case was that on February 13, 2014, when the techie came out of her office at Siruseri, the three accused from North India, working in a construction site at SIPCOT, intercepted her, took her to a secluded place, raped her, killed her and robbed her.
The bench said the young software engineer earning a fabulous income, having lot of hopes of achievements in her life, would have had no reason to anticipate when she left the company at 10.30 p.m to her house, that her cruel end was fast approaching and she would be thrown like a dust, after being ravished of her modesty, in a bush as a lifeless body and the police would be insensitive for some time even after report of her mysterious disappearance. “Yes, she was in the news in the print and electronic media for quite some time. After her mangled decomposed body was found after ten days, there was hue and cry for women protection.”
Dismissing the appeals, the bench said the trial court acquitted the three from charge of rape for want of sufficient evidence, but, so far as the other charges were concerned, the trial court has considered all evidence meticulously, found the three had wrongfully restrained the woman, took her to a nearby secluded place, killed her and robbed her of moveable property.
