Esther case convict files appeal in Bombay HC

Two months after a special women’s court awarded death sentence to 29-year-old driver Chandrabhan Sanap for raping and murdering a 23-year-old software engineer at suburban Kurla in 2014, the Bombay high court on Tuesday admitted his appeal challenging his conviction and death penalty.

The division bench of acting chief justice V.K. Tahilramani and justice Sadhana Jadhav on Tuesday admitted Sanap’s appeal and directed it to be tagged with the confirmation petition filed by the government. The government of Maharashtra has filed a petition seeking confirmation of the death sentence awarded to Sanap while Sanap has also challenged his death sentence — hence the court will hear both the petitions together. Both the appeals will be heard in due course.

The prosecution case is that the victim, hailing from Machilipatnam in Andhra Pradesh, went missing from Lokmanya Tilak terminus near Kurla after arriving by train from home in the early hours of January 5, 2014. Her decomposed body was found off the Eastern Express Highway in suburban Bhandup on January 16, 2014.

According to police, Sanap spotted her sitting alone at the railway station and offered to drop her at Andheri on his two-wheeler. He then took her to an isolated spot and strangled her when she resisted his attempt to rob her.

Sanap, who worked in Mumbai as a porter and then as a driver in Nashik, is a repeat offender. Mumbai Police’s crime branch arrested Sanap in early March last year after an exhaustive scrutiny of 36 CCTV footages at the railway station and grilling of around 2,500 people.

A special court had on October 30 last year convicted Sanap with the observation that the prosecution has proved case against him beyond reasonable doubt. The judge had awarded him death sentence observing that the case falls under the category of the rarest of rare.

The trial judge had also observed, “It (the incident) created a dent in the belief that Mumbai is still a safe city for women.”