Kochi: The Kerala High Court on Monday upheld the death sentence awarded to Muhammed Ameer-Ul-Islam, a convict in the LLB student, Jisha rape-and-murder case.
The order was passed by a division bench of Justices PB Suresh Kumar and S Manu.
The gruesome murder of the Dalit law student took place at Perumbavoor in 2016.
About a year later, the Ernakulam principal district and sessions court awarded the death penalty to Ameer ul-Islam on December 2017.
He is the sole accused in the case.
The Division Bench termed it as the ‘rarest of the rare’ cases. It also dismissed the appeal filed by the convict against the death sentence.
Jisha, a Dalit law student was found dead in her house on April 28, 2016, around 8.30 pm with grievous wounds and her intestines pulled out, at her residence at Kuruppampady near Periyarvalley canal bund ‘Purampokku’.
According to the prosecution, the girl had studied up to LLB, despite hailing from a poor family. She was living with her mother, who worked as a casual labourer. Her house was made of unpolished bricks and roofed with asbestos sheet, located on the side of an irrigation canal owned by the Government. While she was alone at her residence and waiting for her mother, the accused barged into her residence fully drunk, with a bottle of liquor and a knife to commit sexual assault and eventually ended up murdering her.
After committing the murder, he escaped to his home state, Assam, by train from Aluva railway station. When the accused was proceeding to Assam by train, he also threw away the bloodstained clothes worn by him at the time of occurrence and thereby destroyed one of the pieces of evidence connected with the crime. Later, the Kerala police arrested him and produced him before the court on June 16, 2016.
The trial court found guilty for the offence under Section 342 (trespass), 342 (wrongful confinement), 376 (rape), 376 (a) causing death or resulting in the persistent vegetative state of the victim), and 302 (murder) of IPC.
The prosecution had argued that the crime was committed so brutally and it shocks not only the judicial conscience but even the conscience of the society. The prosecutor cited the Dhananjoy Chatterjee case and the Nirbhaya case to substantiate its contention.
The Perumbavur rape and murder case is considered similar to the Nirbhaya case, going by its brutality.
“It’s similar to the Nirbhaya case. Piercing of the weapon on the victim’s genitals reveals his perverted mindset. Hence the accused does not deserve any sympathy or leniency,” the prosecution argued.
Here’s the timeline for high-profile rape and murder case:
April 28: Jisha found murdered at her residence in Iringole near Kurrupampady at 8 pm
April 29: Autopsy done at Alappuzha medical college and body cremated at public crematorium
April 30: Special investigation team formed to probe murder
May 4: Postmortem report reveals that Jisha was raped before being killed and there were 38 wounds on her person; four persons taken into custody
May 8: From bite marks on the body of Jisha, police find there were wide gaps between front teeth of murderer
May 14: Police get DNA samples of murderer from samples collected from objects including Jisha’s dress
May 26: Investigation team reconstituted
June 2: Sketch of suspect released
June 10: Police team gets video footage from a CCTV camera near a fertilizer shop in which Jisha and a person wearing an yellow shirt were seen
June 13: Cyber cell tracks IMEI number of murderer’s phone, team deployed to trace him
June 16: Accused arrested
