Ankur Panwar, the accused in the Preeti Rathi acid attack case, outside Arthur Road jail before being produced in a court. (Photo: PTI)
Ankur Panwar, the accused in the Preeti Rathi acid attack case, outside Arthur Road jail before being produced in a court. (Photo: PTI)
The special women’s court’s decision to award the death penalty to Ankur Panwar, who was convicted for hurling acid on Navy nursing recruit Preeti Rathi in Mumbai three years ago — which led to her death, was based upon four key witness accounts — one of them was an eye-witness — and acid-burns marks on his body that he could not explain.
Special women’s court judge Anju Shende in her order observed that the witness Vinod Kumar, who helped take Preeti Rathi to hospital from the railway station was unknown to the accused and had seen him when he fled the spot after the incident because the scarf that Panwar was using to hide his face had slid down to his neck. Also, he had not worn his cap and so the witness saw his face and was able to identify him as the same boy with whom he had spoken to near the toilet in the train. “He identified him during a test identification parade as well as in the court as the same accused,” read the judgment that was accessed by The Asian Age.
According to the judge, three other witnesses said they saw the accused throwing acid on Preeti. The defence counsel had not been successful in discrediting the testimony of these witnesses.
The judgment has said that medical examination of the accused also went against him as two doctors, who had examined Panwar after his arrest on January 20, 2014 had noticed seven old healed sears of injuries on both his forearms and also on the chest. The judge said the medical evidence of the accused was of vital importance. “He could not explain the injuries on his right forearm,” said the judge.
The judge also gave importance to the type of acid used in the attack. “It is not just nitric acid but a sulphuric acid attack.” After recording how this acid damages skin and body tissues the judge noted, “It corroded Preeti’s body and as it was ingested, it damaged her internal organs too.”
“Throwing acid on her face was a gruesome act to disfigure her face leaving her dead in the society even if she would have survived,” observed the judge while awarding Panwar the death sentence. The court observed, “This crime is a first-of-its-kind in India. This court is not in the knowledge of any case in which a crime of such a nature has been committed and the accused had been sentenced. If the rising trend towards such crime is not checked at its inception, it will have monstrous effect on society and soon it will spread widely. Therefore, deterrent punishment is the need of the hour. Being fully aware of the nature of the death penalty, the court has reached the conclusion to award death sentence to the accused.”
Panwar has been accused of murdering Delhi native Preeti Rathi in 2013 by throwing acid at her after he allegedly grew jealous of the nurse who had come to Mumbai to pursue a career in a defence hospital in the city.
