India: Delhi court pronounces life sentence for four killers of journalist Soumya Vishwanathan

A court in the Indian capital of New Delhi on Saturday (Nov 25) awardee tolife imprisonment tot eh four convicts in the murder of TV journalist Soumya Vishwanathan which happened in 2008, while a fifth convict was given three years of imprisonment.

The court stated that the crime does not come under the rarest of rare category and hence did not give the death penalty to the convicts.

The court sentenced life imprisonment to Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Baljeet Malik, and Ajay Kumar. The fifth convict, identified as Ajay Sethi, was sentenced to only three years of imprisonment for helping them.

On September 30, 2008, Soumya Vishwanathan was killed in her car in Vasant Kunj, when she was returning home afterwork. The court had reserved its order on Friday (Nov 24) on the quantum of sentence pronounced in the murder case.

The verdict was reserved by trial judge Ravindra Kumar Pandey after detailed arguments. In between the arguments, the public prosecutor informed the court that apart from the convict Amit Shukla, an "unsatisfactory" report of the conduct of others in jail was given by the DLSA.

"However, a report from the Jail superintendent has shown 'unsatisfactory conduct' by three of the five convicts and multiple penalties on them. We don't know how the DLSA report and jail report are different," the public prosecutor stated.

Accused convicted by a court in October

The four accused - Ravi Kapoor, Ajay Kumar, Baljeet Malik and Amit Shukla – were convicted by Judge Pandey in October – under the MCOCA and murder charges.

The four men were convicted by the court for the murder. The fifth accused Ajay Sethi was convicted under the Indian Penal Code's Section 411 for retaining the offending vehicle.

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The mother of Soumya Vishwanathan had demanded the court to grant life imprisonment for the convicts. The journalist was shot dead at Nelson Mandela Marg in Vasant Kunj. She was working with a private television news channel.

The convicts were held by the police while they were investigating the killing of Jigisha Ghosh. The police stated that the motive behind the killing of Soumya Vishwanathan was robbery.

(With inputs from agencies)