An Indian court on Monday sentenced a man convicted of raping and murdering a medical intern in Kolkata to life in prison, imposing the death penalty on the case, a horrifying example of how the country remains unsafe for women. I was spared.
The August killing sparked months of protests and political turmoil in West Bengal, whose capital is Kolkata (formerly Calcutta).
India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had asked the court to sentence the perpetrator, Sanjay Roy, to death. So did the families of the victims and the powerful Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
But the court ruled that Roy’s crimes did not meet the “rare of the rare” standard used to justify the execution of people sentenced to death.
“The victim’s family and all of us are truly saddened” by Roy’s avoidance of the death penalty, former National Commission for Women chairwoman and lawmaker Rekha Sharma told the News Agency of India. A member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party, she blamed the verdict on the Kolkata police’s failure to deal with Ms Banerjee.
Before the verdict, Roy, who was a volunteer with the Kolkata Police, said he was innocent. “I didn’t do this. I was framed,” he told the court Monday. He said several months ago that the confession he gave to police was obtained by force.
Details of the crime remained unclear for several days after the 31-year-old victim’s body was found in a seminar hall at a university hospital in Kolkata. They were also horrific enough to remind us of the infamous rape-murder case that took place in New Delhi in December 2012. The incident sparked massive protests and ultimately led to the hanging of four people.
In the Kolkata case, the young doctor was asleep on a mattress on the floor in the early morning hours of August 9 after a grueling shift. After her body was discovered, authorities announced that she had been raped and strangled. Police arrested Roy after he entered the building before the attack and was seen on surveillance footage wearing headphones found at the crime scene.
The public reaction was extraordinary and escalated further over the next few months. Thousands of doctors across the city went on strike demanding safer working conditions. Thousands of Indians also participated, outraged by the callous treatment and cover-up of the victims’ families.
“People are convinced that this has something to do with massive corruption in medical colleges,” said a former civil servant who joined Banerjee’s political party, calling it corruption under her rule. , said Jauhar Sirkar, who resigned in September. It looked like it had been used in the Kolkata hospital rape and murder case.
A spokesperson for Banerjee, one of Modi’s most vocal rivals, welcomed the verdict, posting on social media that the verdict vindicated the politician and the Kolkata police. However, Sirkar added that many protesters took to the streets to protest what they saw as corruption under his long tenure as West Bengal chief minister.
Now, after the verdict, there is a widespread feeling that “only partial justice has been served in singling out and punishing this man,” Silker said.