Observing that the three accused had acted like ?trained bloodhounds? and ?sexual psychopaths? to first kidnap, then rape and murder a 17-year-old girl, the Delhi High Court has affirmed the death sentence imposed on three men held guilty in the Chhawla gangrape and murder case.
The court of Justice Pradeep Nandrajog and Justice Mukta Gupta also observed that convicts Rahul, Ravi and Vinod had not only brutalised the victim while raping her, they had also caused injuries to her body after her death.
On February 9, 2012, the 17-year-old girl was forced into a red Indica by the three convicts when she was walking with her friends near her Qutub Vihar residence. Her battered body was found near a field in Rodai village, Haryana, on February 13, after Rahul was arrested.
Rahul had been identified as the one driving the Indica. Two ATM cards and a Pan Card belonging to Rahul were also found from the field. Rahul later confessed that his brother Ravi and his friend Vinod had also been involved in the incident.
?The sordid facts of the present case reveal that the victim, after having been abducted in public gaze and consequently removed from society, was ravished and murdered. The tale of malignity was far from its conclusion as thereafter the sadistic perpetrators grotesquely stamped the breast and the umbilical region of the deceased by using the heated spanner,? the court noted.
Noting that the actions of the accused had been deliberate, the court has observed that the incident was ?not a common rape followed by murder?.
?The record which they left upon her dead body was a sign: this is not a common rape followed by murder. It is a whimsical and bizarre crime, conceits of which kind are not common in the annals of crime. After raping the unfortunate (victim), they battered her to death. They then defiled her body. Their acts revealed the intention to carry out a crime for the excitement of a criminal act,? the court said.
The court also took note of various measures to control sexual offenders being used in other countries. It noted that measures such as sexual offenders registries, chemical castration and hormone therapy have been used in various countries to regulate such behaviour.
?Sexual offenders registries are predicated on the belief that sex offenders, more than other kinds of offenders, have an enduring disposition to offend and therefore should have their rights to privacy and freedom of movement severely limited in the interests of public safety. The assumptions are that convicted sex offenders released into the community will be under police supervision,? the court stated.
The court also noted that even though the death penalty for gangrape had only been introduced in 2013, it was warranted in this case.
?We cannot ignore that in a rarest of rare case, where the crime and the criminal test are satisfied, sentence of death can be inflicted for a violent rape followed by murder and specially when the accused have acted as predators, have snatched a member of the society from the society to commit the crime. Having committed the crime the predators have defiled the body of the victim…,? the court said.