The Ernakulam Principal Sessions Court in Kochi on Thursday awarded death sentence to Assamese migrant worker Ameerul Islam (24) in the sensational case pertaining to the brutal rape and murder of 29-year-old Dalit woman Jisha, a law student, at Perumbavoor in Ernakulam district early last year. Ameerul was the lone accused in the case.
Pronouncing the quantum of punishment, Principal Sessions Judge N Anil Kumar, who had on Tuesday found Ameerul guilty of five of the seven serious charges the prosecution had slapped on him, said the case was fit for awarding death sentence and that the punishment should help in creating a situation in society where women could live with dignity.
Apart from the death sentence for murder under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, the judge also awarded punishment to Islam under four other sections of the IPC. The court ordered transfer of the convict, who had so far been lodged in a sub-jail near Kochi under judicial custody, to the Central Prison at Viyyur, Thrissur.
In the 16-page sentence part of the 360-page verdict, the judge said the Jisha murder case was very similar to the Nirbhaya case of Delhi.
The death sentence has now to be ratified by the higher court and Ameerul’s counsel BA Aloor said that an appeal would be filed in the High Court against the lower court’s verdict at the earliest.
Ameerul was also awarded rigorous life imprisonment and a fine of Rs 25,000 under IPC Section 376 (rape), 10-year rigorous imprisonment and Rs 25,000 fine under Section 376 A (rape causing death of victim), 7-year jail and Rs 15,000 fine under Section 449 (house trespass to commit offence) and one-year jail and Rs 1,000 fine under Section 342 (wrongful confinement).
The court’s decision proved that it had agreed with almost all arguments of the prosecution which had pressed for death penalty for the Assamese youth by pointing out that the brutality behind Jisha murder made it identical with the Nirbhaya case. “We succeeded in convincing the court about all the charges,” said lawyer NK Unnikrishnan, who appeared for the prosecution.
“My daughter’s killer has got the sentence that I have been praying for so far,” said Jisha’s mother Rajeswari, who was present at the court to hear the verdict while Ameerul’s lawyer Aloor, responded with a very controversial statement, “An innocent has been given death sentence. The lower courts in Kerala and India have lost their backbones.”
The Jisha murder case is proof of how the legal system could complete even a very complicated case within record time. The probe and judicial processes were completed within 19 months of the murder. The other such case in Kerala that had seen such speedy process was the sensational Soumya rape-murder case in which the process was completed in ten months.
The Dalit woman’s naked body was found in a pool of blood in her house at Vattolippadi, Iringole near Perumbavoor by her mother Rajeswari on the night of April 28, 2016. It was found that her genital parts had been mutilated using some sharp weapons and intestines had come out. Autopsy revealed that there were 33 wounds on the body.
The prosecution case was that Ameerul, a daily-wage construction worker who used to go to work by the road alongside Jisha’s house, entered the house in a drunken and lustful state with the intention of raping her and stabbed her in the neck and face when she resisted his attempt. He raped her after that and mutilated her genitals using the knife.
Officials of a special probe team of the Kerala Police, headed by Additional DGP B Sandhya, took Ameerul, who had gone to Assam after committing the murder, into custody from Kancheepuram on June 14, 2016. There were suspicions that the crime could not have committed by a single person but the police’s conclusion was that Ameerul was the only culprit.
The prosecution had built up the case in which there were no eyewitnesses entirely on scientific evidences — most importantly the results of DNA analyses — and circumstantial evidences. The prosecution had produced in the court 291 documents and 36 exhibits to prove its case and a total of 105 witnesses were examined during the trial.
The analyses of the DNA samples collected from the weapon used for committing the crime, the footwear recovered from near the house, Jisha’s hair clip, the house’s door frame and from the saliva found on the victim’s shawl established that Ameerul was the only culprit. A medical report said that the bite injury found on his finger was inflicted by Jisha herself.