Life in prison for RG Kar hospital rapist, murderer

Strongly feel it is a heinous crime... We will plead for capital punishment of the convict at the High Court now MAMATA BANERJEE, West Bengal chief minister

- HT Correspondent

KOLKATA: A 35-year-old former civic police volunteer who raped and murdered a junior doctor at Kolkata's RG Kar hospital last year will spend the rest of his life in jail, a local court ruled on Monday, observing that the grisly crime didn't fall in the "rarest of rare" category to deserve the death penalty.

"While the counsel representing CBI and the victim's family have demanded the death sentence, your counsel has pleaded for a life imprisonment. I am sorry. This is not a rarest of the rare case," additional district and sessions judge Anirban Das said in the packed room.

"I am sentencing you to life imprisonment, meaning till the last day of your life, for causing injury during the act of committing rape on the victim that led to her death," he told Roy.

The decision sparked a controversy with chief minister Mamata Banerjee expressing dissatisfaction at the convict, former Kolkata Police civic volunteer Sanjoy Roy, escaping capital punishment and the parents of the victims blaming the Central Bureau of Investigation.

The sentence came two days after the court had pronounced Roy guilty under sections 64 (rape), 66 (inflicting injury leading to death or cause the woman to be a persistence vegetative state) and 103 (1) (murder) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.

Since early morning on Monday, room number 210 on the second floor of the Sealdah court was packed with lawyers, police and media persons, everyone jostling for space even as the judge pronounced the verdict. The judge had to request those present in the courtroom at least twice to maintain silence so that the proceedings could continue. A few hundred policemen set up multiple layers of barricades outside the court to avoid any law and order problem.