Court convicts 3 in Jigisha murder case
A Delhi court on Tuesday convicted three men — Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla and Baljeet Malik — for murdering and robbing IT executive Jigisha Ghosh ( 28) in 2009, noting that it was abundantly clear that they were involved in the crime.
Additional sessions judge Sandeep Yadav held all the accused guilty for the offence punishable under Sections 302/ 201/ 365 / 394/ 468/ 471/ 482/ 120- B/ 34 of the IPC. Ravi was also convicted under Arms Act.
Twenty- eight- year- old Jigisha, who had been working as an operations manager in a management consultancy firm, was abducted and killed on March 18, 2009 after she was dropped by her office cab near her home in south Delhi’s Vasant Vihar at 4 am. The accused, after murdering her, had dumped her body in Surajkund in Haryana.
The accused had used Jigisha’s ATM card to buy expensive goggles, wrist watches and shoes from Sarojini Nagar Market, according to the police. The three convicts are currently in jail under judicial custody.
“I can never forget the images of her body left in some bushes. I want death penalty for the accused, Although no punishment can give justice to our daughter,” Jigisha’s mother Sabita Ghosh said.
“My daughter begged for her life because she was the only member to take care of us. She did not resist and gave the killers all her belongings to stay alive. But they killed my daughter in cold blood,” she said.
“They could have asked us for money or anything they wanted and we would have happily given it to them. Nothing was more precious than her life.”
“The accused murdered her and later dumped her body in bushes. Circumstantial evidence makes it clear that they were involved in the crime. It is abundantly clear from evidence that they committed the crime. There is no missing link of crime ( and), hence, innocence is ruled out,” the court said.
It is proved on record that Jigisha did not return home at expected time on the day of incident. The court said it was proved that the three convicts had abducted Jigisha, robbed her of her gold chain, two mobile phones, two rings and debit and credit cards and killed her.
The court will on August 20 hear the arguments on quantum of sentence.
The court also directed Delhi home secretary to immediately appoint probation officers for filing reports on the background of the convicts and their conduct in jail.
“Secretary, home department, Delhi government, is directed to assign to any probation official the task of submitting pre- sentence report to this court, specifically on two aspects, ( 1) Is there a probability that, in the future, the convicts would commit criminal acts of violence as would constitute a committee threat to society ( 2) Is there any probability that convicts can be reformed and rehabilitated,” the court noted. The report will be submitted before the court within a month.
The police had filed the chargesheet in the case in June 2009 and the trial began on April 15, 2010.