Abolish Death Penalty India: Delhi: Kin of brutal rape-murder victim take solace in death sentence for convict

Sunday, March 2, 2025

Delhi: Kin of brutal rape-murder victim take solace in death sentence for convict

Hemani Bhandari

Published on: Mar 02, 2025 05:16 am IST

The rapist was 21 years old at the time of the crime. His father was sentenced to life imprisonment for helping dispose of the eight-year-old girl’s body

“It truly feels like justice has been served and my daughter in heaven would be smiling”, the 45-year-old father of a brutal rape and murder victim said a day after the convict in the case was sentenced to death for the crime that took place in Nihal Vihar, outer Delhi, in February 2019. While the rapist, Rajender Kumar, who was 21 years old at the time of the crime, was sentenced to death, his father Ram Saran, then 52, was sentenced to life imprisonment for helping his son dispose of the eight-year-old girl’s body, according to the verdict issued by a Delhi court on Friday.

Sitting in their house on a cramped street in Nihal Vihar on Saturday, the victim’s mother said she was in the court when the judge passed the sentence. “When she sentenced the man to death, for a second, I felt someone will die; but, I also felt content that my daughter was finally given justice for the brutality she went through. We waited for six years to see this day,” the 38-year-old homemaker said.The father, a driver by profession, teared up as he recollected the day of the incident. He said that around 5.30pm on February 9, 2019, the victim’s five-year-old sister—who is speech impaired—rushed home and communicated to them that she was playing with her sister when a man approached them, gave her sister something to eat, slapped her and took her away.

The parents said they spent the whole night looking for their daughter, but to their dismay, found her body bound with a rope in a nearby park. “I was with a relative when I found my daughter dead around 7am. I wanted to hold her but my relative said that this was now a police case and I shouldn’t touch her body. It was the most difficult time of my life,” he said. The accused and his father were arrested two days later. According to the sequence of events shared by the police, the rapist tied the girl, strangled her and bludgeoned her with a brick to ensure she had died. Within 45 minutes of Kumar murdering the girl, Saran reached home and advised Kumar to wait until midnight to dispose of the body. “They carried the body on a scooter and dumped it in the nearby park,” an officer said.

On Saturday, the parents said that over the past six years, they attended most of the hearings and on the day of conviction, the judge had asked for their demand. “We demanded that they should be sentenced to death or given life imprisonment. The judge assured us that our demand will be heard,” the father said. The incident has left the parents scared for their speech-impaired daughter, who is currently 11. The mother was eight months pregnant when the incident took place and a month later, she delivered a stillborn child. “After I lost my daughter, I barely ate and cried all day. I lost the baby in my womb. The doctors told me three days after delivery that he had already died in my womb,” she said. The father said that they don’t send their daughter anywhere alone and the mother takes her to school and accompanies her back. “We are so scared. We are extra cautious for her now,” he said. The mother said: “Our lives are ruined though. One child was murdered, one child died. If they were alive, they would have taken care of our daughter, but now what will happen to her after we die?” The victim’s photos and clothes, the mother said, are still lying in her “sandook” (trunk), which is locked up and not seen by the family, she said. “The weight of our hearts when we carried her coffin was too heavy,” the mother cried.

Source: https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/delhi-news/delhi-kin-of-brutal-rape-murder-victim-take-solace-in-death-sentence-for-convict-101740852127076.html

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The Death Penalty Scenario in India

India is one of 193 countries that retains the death penalty. Some judges have delivered landmark verdicts upholding the rights of death row prisoners, while debates continue advocating abolition or reform of sentencing policies. The Indian government remains committed to retention, asserting executions occur only in “rarest of rare” cases. The death penalty applies to crimes including murder, kidnapping, terrorism, desertion, inducement to suicide of a minor or mentally-retarded person, and in certain cases of rape. Outrage over child rape and murder has intensified these discussions. After an unofficial eight-year moratorium, the government executed Ajmal Kasab (Mumbai attacks) in 2012 and Afzal Guru (Parliament attack) in 2013, both covertly and immediately after mercy petitions were rejected. Prior to this, Dhananjoy Chatterjee was executed in 2004 after 13 years on death row. Following these, many mercy petitions have been rejected, creating fear among death row convicts. Courts continue to hand down death sentences at an increasing rate. Empirical studies highlight the plight of death row prisoners. The India Exclusion Report 2017-18 found fair trial rights largely denied, with convicts often marginalized by caste, religion, poverty, and education. The Death Penalty Research Project (2015) documented socio-economic profiles and experiences of death row prisoners. Dr. Reena Mary George’s studies (2014, 2009) emphasized poverty, social exclusion, and dignity as central to death row experiences, and examined the human rights impact of the penalty. According to the National Crime Records Bureau 2015, 101 prisoners were on death row, with many sentences commuted to life. The “rarest of rare” doctrine introduced by the Supreme Court in the 1980s has not substantially limited death sentences, which have increased over the decades. Justice Joseph (2018) reaffirmed the Bachan Singh judgment but urged restriction of the death penalty to only those cases meeting its criteria. While updating the blog and conducting my own empirical studies, I observed the heinous nature of the crimes that were committed and thought about the families, about their loss, about the victims who for no fault of their own died. If I lost my relative or a dear friend, would I still oppose death penalty and would I still advocate to abolish the death sentence? Having worked in the criminal justice system and also having the seen the other side, where often it is the marginalized, vulnerable and oppressed who are on death row makes me want to advocate for abolition of this punishment. Victims should definitely get justice for their loss, for their pain. No one should escape the rule of law. As long as humanity exists; crime will exist. Should we not re-consider our sentencing policies? Reena Mary George