On death row: The crimes and an ensuing 25-year-long legal battle

MUMBAI: More than two decades after they were convicted for kidnapping 13 young children, and killing five of them, and seven years after Pranab Mukherjee, the then President of India, rejected their mercy petitions, Renuka Shinde (48) and Seema Gavit (43) will not be hanged. The Bombay high court (HC) on Tuesday commuted their death sentence to life imprisonment — they will remain lodged at Pune’s Yerwada jail for the rest of their natura lives.

The kidnappings and murders took place between 1990 and 1996. Anjanabai Gavit lived in a room on rent in Gondhale Nagar, Pune with two daughters, Renuka (aka Rinku aka Ratan) and Seema (aka Devki).

The trio moved around in western Maharashtra, including Mumbai Metropolitan Region attending jatras (processions), festivals and other celebrations and visiting landmark temples, where they made a living out of stealing valuables including ornaments of women at these crowded places.

Renuka’s husband, Kiran Shinde, who worked as tailor in Pune, also assisted the trio in these thefts. In 1990, Renuka visited a temple with her baby boy. She tried to snatch the purse of a woman but was caught. She was let off after she raised a hue and cry that she was falsely implicated and she was merely the mother of a small toddler.

It was then that the four decided to conduct these thefts with small children in tow, to help them escape easily. According to the police, between 1990 and 1996, the family kidnapped 13 small children below five years of age. According to the police, the women killed nine of these 13 children, disposing of the bodies in different places in Kolhapur district. They were arrested by the Kolhapur police in October 1996.

On June 28, 2001, an additional sessions judge at Kolhapur convicted the two sisters for kidnapping 13 minor children and killing at least six of them — four girls and two boys —sentencing them to death. Five years later, the Bombay HC upheld the sentence but, convicted them for the murder of five children. On August 31, 2006, the Supreme Court upheld the HC’S ruling.

Anjanabai died in 1997 before the trial began. Kiran Shinde was pardoned by the court.

Using toddlers as cover

Their first victim was the son of a beggar at the Kolhapur bus stand, who was picked up by Renuka in July 1990. They brought him to Pune and began calling him Santosh. In April 1991, Seema was caught while trying to steal the purse of a devotee at the Mahalaxmi temple in Kolhapur. To divert attention away from Seema, Anjanabai dropped Santosh, barely a year old at the time, who sustained injuries. In the melee that ensued, Seema escaped, the 2006 SC judgement narrated.

They went to the Kolhapur bus stand, but Santosh was crying continuously because of his injuries. Worried that they would get caught, Anjanabai pressed his mouth and dashed his head on an iron bar. Santosh died on the spot.

Besides Santosh, the four also kidnapped children between one and five years, including Anjali, Bunty, Swati, Guddu, Meena, Rajan, Shradha, Gauri, Swapnil and Pankaj. They murdered at least five of them — Santosh, Shradha, Gauri, Swapnil and Pankaj, the SC judgement stated.

In October 1996, Anjanabai, Seema and Renuka were arrested in Nashik over an unrelated matter — they were accused of kidnapping Anjanabai’s ex-husband’s daughter from another marriage — and during a search, Kolhapur police found several clothes of small children at their house. This opened an investigation which led to the revelation of their heinous crimes.

Suhas Nadgauda, one of the investigating officers in the case recalled how a team of policemen from different districts worked hard to establish the chain of events in the court.

Nadgauda who is currently assistant commissioner of police at the Anti-corruption Bureau posted in Kolhapur as a sub-inspector at the time.

“The case was first detected in Nashik when the local police arrested Anjanabai. Later, the

Crime Investigation Department constituted a team of officers from various places to probe the crimes. These cases were later clubbed together and the trial was held at the sessions court in Kolhapur,” said Nadgauda.

The prosecution’s case was strengthened after Kiran Shinde, Renuka’s husband, turned approver. Shinde also told the police where the children’s bodies were disposed of.

According to advocate Manik Mulik, who represented Renuka and Seema at lower court between 2000 and 2002, some of the parents of the victims would attend the proceedings and deposed before the judge. “Later, they stopped coming and all of us lost their touch,” Mulik said.

During the trial, the prosecution examined 156 witnesses.

THE STATE’S AFFIDAVIT STATED THAT WHATEVER DELAY WAS CAUSED OCCURRED FOR COMPLYING WITH THE PROCEDURES TO BE FOLLOWED

The mercy pleas

After the SC upheld their death sentence, Seema and Renuka filed a mercy petition on October 10, 2008 and October 17, 2009, respectively. The President rejected their mercy pleas in 2014, following which they approached the Bombay HC with an urgent petition.

It stated that on August 28, 2013, the Governor of Maharashtra had rejected their mercy plea and thereafter the file was forwarded to the Central Government – to be submitted to the President of India, who decided on the pleas on July 7, 2014 — within 10 months of receiving it. Shinde and Gavit contended that the President took more than five years to reject their mercy petitions when such a plea should have been disposed of within three months.