Kerala: It was in April last year, that a 30-year-old Dalit law student Jisha was found brutally murdered in her home in Kerala’s Ernakulam with her naked body bearing marks of the brutal rape.
Months later after the Jisha rape and murder took place, the Kerala Session’s court has today convicted the suspect Ameer-ul-Aslam, an Assamese labourer guilty of raping and murdering Jisha.
As the judgment was being pronounced, the convict said thrice: “I am innocent, the police just arrested me and took me away.”
Ernakulam Principal Sessions Court judge N Anil Kumar is likely to pronounce the quantum of punishment tomorrow.
The convict was found guilty under various sections of the IPC including 302 (murder), 376 (Rape) 376 (A) (causing death or causes the woman to be in persistent vegetative state while committing rape).
The Session’s Court had completed the case hearing on 6 December case and scheduled to pronounce the Judgement today.
Deceased rape victim Jisha’s mother was present during the court’s hearing. She demanded capital punishment for the convict for her daughter’s brutal murder where Jisha’s intestines were pulled out with her body brutally wounded from sharp objects, a gory murder similar to the Nirbhaya gang rape that took place in 2012 in Delhi.
“I am happy that he has been convicted. I want him to get death sentence. He killed my daughter, now he should be killed. What happened to my daughter, should not happen to anyone else”, Jisha’s mother, Rajeshwari told NDTV in court.
The accused was booked under various sections of the IPC and Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Rules.
As many as 100 witnesses were examined during the trial which commenced in April last.
The convict was arrested from Tamil Nadu’s Kancheepuram after he reportedly left Perumbavoor soon after committing the gruesome crime.
The gruesome crime provoked massive protests throughout Kerala last year with political parties attacked the then Congress-led United Democratic Front regime during the assembly polls for failing to apprehend the culprits and alleging slow investigation in the case since the family was poor.
The Left Democratic Front party after taking the charge on 25 May took its first step in the case by changing the investigation team.
The Special Investigation Team examined over 5,000 fingerprints and went through 20 lakh telephonic conversations along with 1,500 people examined by 100 policemen before finding the culprit.
The police said blood-stained footwear found from a canal near Jisha’s house and that was the only key evidence in identifying the culprit.