State to speed up execution of rapist

MUMBAI: The Maharashtra government is planning to expedite the first-ever execution of a rapist in the state by getting the courts to set a date for hanging Mohan Anna Chavan, 16 years after he raped and killed two girls aged five and 10 in Kolhapur.

Like in the case of the 1993 Mumbai blasts convict, Yakub Memon, the state, to speed up the process, decided to urge the sessions court to fix the date for the execution. Chavan’s mercy petition was rejected by the President earlier this year and he has now moved a review petition in the Supreme Court.

“In the case of Memon, the review petition was expedited in the Supreme Court only after the trial court fixed the date of the hanging in July this year. On the same lines, our prayer to the sessions court would be to decide on the hanging. We are keen on expediting the execution,” said an official in the home department.

On December 13, 1999, Chavan lured the two girls in Kolhapur’s Gulamb village with the offer of sweets and committed the crime. He threw the body of one child in a dry well in a field and the other behind some bushes after strangulating her. The sessions court held him guilty of rape and murder and sentenced him to death. The Bombay high court confirmed the death sentence in 2002 and the Supreme Court upheld it in 2008.

“More than 16 years after the unpardonable crime, the convict has not been punished and has been resorting to various remedies available,” said the officer.

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