Soumya Vishwanathan murder case: 4 convicts sentenced to life in prison by Delhi court
Soumya Vishwanathan was shot dead in her car at Vasant Kunj in Delhi on September 30, 2008, while returning home from work.
Soumya Vishwanathan murder case: Four men convicted of the murder of Delhi television journalist Soumya Vishwanathan have been sentenced to life imprisonment by a Saket court. They have also been fined Rs 25,000 and Rs 1 lakh each under the Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act (MCOCA). The fifth convict in the case was sentenced to three years in prison. Soumya Vishwanathan was shot dead in her car near Vasant Kunj in Delhi on September 30, 2008 around 3.30 am while returning home from work.
Conviction on various charges
The five accused convicted in October are Ravi Kapoor, Ajay Kumar, Baljeet Malik and Amit Shukla under the murder and MCOCA charges, while the fifth accused, Ajay Sethi, was convicted under Section 411 of the Indian Code of Criminal Procedure (IPC) for retaining the offending vehicle and has been sentenced to imprisonment for three years.
Order reserved
The Saket court had reserved its order on sentencing in the case on Friday. Justice Ravindra Kumar Pandey had reserved the verdict after detailed arguments. During arguments, the prosecutor told the court that besides convict Amit Shukla, the Delhi State Legal Services Authority (DLSA) had also submitted an “unsatisfactory” report on conduct in the jail.
“However, a report from the prison inspector shows that three of the five convicts have exhibited ‘unsatisfactory behaviour’ and that they have been given multiple sentences. We don’t know how the DLSA report and the prison report differ,” the prosecutor said.
Soumya Vishwanathan, an employee of a private television news channel, was shot dead on Nelson Mandela Marg of Vasant Kunj. Her mother had demanded life imprisonment against the convicts.
The motive behind Soumya Vishwanathan’s murder was robbery, police say.
October decision of Saket Court
Delhi’s Saket Court convicted all five accused in the case, Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Baljeet Malik, Ajay Kumar and Ajay Sethi. They have been in judicial custody since March 2009 and the Delhi Police has imposed MCOCA on all of them.
Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Ajay Kumar and Baljeet Malik were found guilty of committing murder with intent to rob her and were convicted under Sections 302 and 34 and held guilty under Section 3(1)(i) of MCOCA. Ajay Sethi was convicted under Section 411 of the IPC and Section 3(2) and 3(5) of the MCOCA.
The murder of Soumya Vishwanathan
Soumya Vishwanathan was a television journalist who was 25 years old at the time and worked for Headlines Today, now known as India Today. She was shot in the head while driving back from work in the early hours of September 30, 2008. Court records show that police received a call about the incident at Vasant Kunj police station around 3.45 am.
Investigations begin after long delay
There has been ‘delayed justice’ in this case from the beginning. The proper investigation started long after the incident and the verdict also took more than ten years. While the murder took place on September 30, 2008 and an FIR for murder under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) was registered on the same day, a breakthrough in the investigation was made a year later when the body of another person Jigisha Ghosh was found in Faridabad on March 21, 2009. Three people, Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla and Baljeet Malik, were arrested in the Jigisha Ghosh murder case.