Written by: Express News Service
3 min readPuneMar 21, 2012 02:11 AM IST
First published on: Mar 21, 2012 at 02:11 AM IST
The Pune district and sessions court on Tuesday sentenced two people to death for the rape and murder of 22-year-old BPO employee Jyotikumari Choudhari in 2007. Cab driver Purushottam Borate 31 and his friend Pradeep Yashwant Kokate 25 were found guilty of abducting,raping and murdering Choudhari.
Delivering the judgment in a packed courtroom,Principal District and Sessions Judge Anant Badar sentenced the two to death for criminal conspiracy for murder and awarded life sentence to run concurrently for abduction and rape.
Jyotikumari,who hailed from Uttar Pradesh,was a science graduate from the University of Pune. She had joined the Wipro BPO then called Spectramind as an associate in December 2006 and was staying with her sister and brother-in-law in Panchavati area,Pashan. Around 10 pm on November 1,2007,the last day of her notice period with the company,Borate,along with Kokade,picked her up in the office cab for her night shift. Her body was found the next day near Gahunje village with cut marks on the right hands vein and wounds from strangulation. The court held the two accused guilty on Saturday.
They took the helpless victim who was confiding in them to a secluded place and raped her turn by turn. Even after the commission of crime,both showed no remorse and immediately went for the other pick-up. The accused were not under duress or domination of any other person but their acts were just for satisfying lust, the court said.
The judge added,Collective conscience of the community is so shocked by this crime that imposing an alternative sentence,that is life imprisonment,on the accused would not meet the ends of justice.
Jyotikumaris brother-in-law Shishir Pundalik said,I want to thank the honourable court for delivering justice to us. We understand Jyoti is not coming back but we hope this judgment will serve as a deterrent to criminals.
Some time after the judge told the two about the sentence,Borate showed no remorse while Kokade broke down.
The trial had suffered a setback after the arrest of an alleged fake lawyer Mahendra Kawachale,who represented the the accused earlier. Atul Patil,who replaced Kawachale,said after the judgment,We will appeal in the High Court and fight till the end.
Jhajjar deaths: Cops suspect honour killing
A DAY after three cousins were found hacked to death in Manthodi village of Jhajjar district,investigations indicated that the victims,all belonging to the Scheduled Caste,may have been targeted because one of them reportedly had an affair with a woman from an upper caste family.
Officials said scrutiny of the call details of Sonu,20,revealed repeated exchange of phone calls and SMSes with the woman,who was questioned on Tuesday. The motive is definitely the involvement of one of the victims with a woman, said SP Patram Singh.
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