After more than 15 years since the fatal shooting of television journalist Soumya Vishwanathan by unidentified assailants in South Delhi’s Vasant Kunj, a South Delhi court has declared four of the accused guilty of murder. Meanwhile, a fifth defendant has been found guilty of possessing a stolen car. The court is expected to announce their sentences next week.
Additional Sessions Judge Ravindra Kumar Pandey found four defendants, namely Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Baljeet Malik, and Ajay Kumar, guilty of the murder of the journalist. Soumya Vishwanathan was shot while returning home in the early morning of September 30, 2008, after her night shift at Headlines Today, a television news channel. The fifth accused, Ajay Sethi, has been convicted of possessing stolen property (the car). Two of the accused, Kapoor and Shukla, had initially received death sentences in 2016 for their involvement in the murder of another girl, Jigisha Ghosh, in Vasant Vihar, not far from the location of Soumya’s murder. However, their sentences were later reduced to life imprisonment upon appeal, and it’s likely that the prosecution will seek the death penalty in this case. The Delhi Police had invoked the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) in the Soumya Vishwanathan case due to the lack of evidence and leads. Progress in this case only began after the recovery of the murder weapon used in the killing of IT executive Jigisha Ghosh in 2009. Soumya’s parents have continued to reside in Delhi and have been steadfastly pursuing justice for their younger daughter. The trial at the Saket court spanned over a decade, making it one of the lengthiest such trials and prompting inquiries from the High Court. The trial court cited the delay as primarily due to the unavailability of prosecution witnesses and the time required for the appointment of a special public prosecutor. The court is scheduled to announce the sentences on Thursday, October 26. Cases like those of Soumya and Jigisha, the latter being an IT employee, contributed to the perception of Delhi as an unsafe city for women, leading to regulations that restricted women’s professional freedom, such as limitations on nighttime work for women in the city.
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