Indian child killer sentenced to death 23 days after arrest, raises fears over trial fairness
INDORE, India: Naveen Gadke was arrested on April 20 and charged with the rape and murder of a baby girl in central India.
Three weeks later a court sentenced the 26-year- old odd-job man to death in the fastest such trial known to have happened in modern India, a nation where public outrage is running high because of a series of rapes and related killings.
Police, prosecutors and the district court in the city of Indore worked at a furious pace to get the conviction quickly, amid a backlash on the streets, including marches in this city of about 2 million, 550 miles south of Delhi.
This is in a country where Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government last month introduced the death penalty for rapes of girls under 12 years in response to public pressure but which has a notoriously slow court system, with cases taking at least six years on average to final ruling, according to governance tracking group Daksh.
But the pace of the trial, the intensifying push for speedy hearings in rape cases, and questions about the legal defence provided to Gadke — who pleaded not guilty — have raised concerns among some legal rights advocates.
They are fearful there will be wrongful convictions and hangings when a defendant cannot afford to hire a good lawyer.
“While expeditious trials are ideal, these should not be at the cost of fair trial safeguards like the right to adequate time to prepare a defence and the presumption of innocence,” said Leah Verghese, senior campaigner at human rights group Amnesty International India, in an email response to questions.
Senior Supreme Court lawyer Rebecca John said she was concerned.
“As a principle, I am opposed to rushing through investigative processes and trial processes” she said.
But reflecting the mood of the nation, well-known Supreme Court lawyer Dushyant Dave, a vocal supporter of capital punishment, said India “needs to send at least 500 people to death in the next one year to end this endemic” of rape.
“Our system is archaic and extremely inefficient,” he added.
Such views have resonated with the mother of the dead threemonthold girl as she sat on the front yard of a 200-year- old palace where her homeless family sleeps in the open.
She told Reuters she was happy with the swift verdict but her daughter would get justice only when Gadke is hung to death, just as quickly. — Reuters