3 Kamduni gangrape convicts get death sentence 3 others get life imprisonment

Out of 9 arrested, 1 died, 2 freed

The city sessions court on Saturday awarded death sentence to three convicts and life imprisonment to three others in the Kamduni gangrape and murder case. Additional district and sessions judge Sanchita Sarkar sentenced Ansar Ali Mollah, Saiful Ali and Amin Ali to death and awarded life imprisonment to Bhola Naskar, Imanul Islam and Aminur Islam. The judge pronounced the quantum of punishment two days after their conviction.

On June 7, 2013, a 21 year old college student was forcibly dragged inside a walled compound after she got off a bus on a rainy afternoon and more than half a dozen people brutally raped and killed her. Nine persons were arrested for the heinous crime and charged under Sections 302 (murder), Section 376 D (gang-rape), 120B (conspiracy) and destruction of evidence of the Indian Penal Code.

One of the accused — Gopal Naskar — died during the trial. Two of the eight accused — Rafiqul Islam Gazi and Noor Ali — were acquitted for want of evidence.

Like on Friday, defence counsel of the convicts, Phiroze Edulji, made a last ditch attempt to save three of them from capital punishment and three others from life imprisonment. On Saturday, he also argued that their crime could not be described as “rarest of rare.”

He cited several judgments, both from the Supreme Court and high courts, in support of his argument that Ansar Ali Mollah, Saiful Ali and Amin Ali should not be sent to the gallows. His other argument was that the police could and should not implicate other accused on the basis of the statement of a co-accused. He was ref-erring to the confessional statement of Saiful Ali that was recorded under Section 164 of the CrPC before a Barasat magistrate a few days after his arrest. Interestingly, public prosecutor Anindya Raut also cited Saiful’s confessional statement in support of his argument that it was the “rarest of rare” case and, therefore, the convicts deserved the maximum punishment. “Saiful, while recording the statement, had enacted his crime before the magistrate in graphic details,” he said, adding that the victim was brutally subjected to sexual torture.