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Journalism of Courage
A day after a photojournalist was gangraped in the abandoned Shakti Mills on August 22, 2013, the Mumbai Police had detained a minor boy with the help of his teen friend, who identified the boy’s sketch drawn on the basis of the description given by the victim’s colleague. The minor boy went on to provide the police names and addresses of his four adult accomplices, who were arrested within three days.
The photojournalist had narrated her ordeal to her colleague, who had accompanied her for a photoshoot in the Shakti Mills premises. After she was taken to Jaslok hospital, N M Joshi Marg police was informed, which registered a case based on her statement. The Bombay High Court, while commuting the death sentence given to the three men to life imprisonment on November 25, 2021, had noted that sketches drawn by artists Nitin Yadav and Mohmmad Siddiq Shaikh were shown to “secret informants” (whose names are not disclosed by police), including a 13-year-old boy, who identified the minor boy.
According to the police, on August 22, the minor boy had called up his teen friend (a secret informant), who used to stay in the same area as the other convicts, and given him a soiled shirt, asking him to get another shirt. Local residents had also seen the two together in the area.
The teenager later went on to give Inspector Arun Shivaji Mane the address of the minor boy and also identified him. The boy was detained and gave police the details of the four other accused. On August 24, 2013, the officers of Crime Branch Unit II and Dadar police station arrested Vijay Mohan Jadhav (18) and Siraj Rehmat Khan (24), respectively. On August 25, Mohammad Kasim Shaikh alias Bangali (20) and Mohammed Salim Ansari (27) were arrested.
In April 2014, while Khan was sentenced to life imprisonment, the sessions court presided by the then principal judge Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi awarded the death sentence to Jadhav, Shaikh and Ansari.
For the first time, accused were given capital punishment under Section 376E (death penalty for repeat offenders of rape) of the IPC. The said section was added following the 2012 Delhi gangrape case.
The same sessions court gave the three men life sentences in another case where a 19-year-old telephone operator was gangraped inside Shakti Mills in July 2013. The trials in both cases were held simultaneously and conviction handed out the same day.
The court had observed that there was no scope of leniency and the crime was “diabolic” with offenders to be dealt with “iron hand”. “The Mumbai Police machinery swung into action swiftly. The courageous stand of the victim girl of reporting the incident to the police… helped police to arrest all accused within a day or two,” the court had noted. It had said that even a “cursory glance” to the sketches showed that they matched the description of the accused.
On November 25, 2021, a bench of Justices Sadhana S Jadhav and Prithviraj K Chavan of the Bombay High Court commuted to life imprisonment the death penalty given to three men, noting that the “death puts end to the concept of repentance, sufferings and mental agony”.
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