Man gets death for Kerala rape-murder

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A local court in Kerala’s Ernakulam on Thursday sentenced to death a migrant worker from Assam for raping and killing a 29-year-old Dalit woman. Ameer-ul Islam was found guilty by the court on Tuesday.

The trial court termed the case “rarest of the rare”. It said the accused did not deserve any sympathy, and observed that he had not shown any remorse and was a big threat to society.

The convict was also sentenced to 14 years in jail and fined ₹5 lakh under various sections of the Indian Penal Code. A translator informed him about the details of the verdict and he heard it without any expression.

The woman, a Dalit law student from Perumbavur near Kochi, was found murdered in her one-room house on April 28, 2016. Her mother, a casual labourer, found the body with more than 30 stab wounds. The murder had led to protests across the state, and raised concerns over women’s safety. The mother of the victim said she was happy with the verdict. “No other girl should undergo such a fate. Such heavy punishment will act as a strong deterrent in curbing mounting crime against women,” she said. SIT head BS Sandhya, ADGP, also expressed happiness with the ruling. The trial of Ameer-ul Islam, who was arrested two months after the murder, started in April this year and was completed in 8 months.

As many as 100 witnesses were heard and 291 documents and DNA test reports were presented during it.

The prosecution mainly relied on scientific and circumstantial evidence to crack the case in the absence of direct evidence. The investigation team recovered the DNA of the accused from the nail clipping of the woman, besides bloodstains and saliva found on her clothes.

Ameer-ul Islam’s DNA was also found from a pair of slippers he had left behind.

Ameer-ul Islam, hailing from Nagaon district of Assam, worked for almost eight years in different parts of the southern state as a labourer. He was living in a small house 500 metres away from the woman’s house when he committed the crime. The prosecution said he stalked her on several occasions and entered her house after ensuring that she was alone.

The court lauded the investigation carried out by the SIT. “The DNA technology and call data records helped to establish the identity of the accused beyond any reasonable doubt,” special judge N Anil Kumar observed in his judgment.