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Kids’ kidnap-murder case: Bombay HC commutes death verdict for 2 to life

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Bombay High Court.

Bombay High Court.

The Bombay High Court on Tuesday commuted the death sentences on two prime accused – both step-sisters – to life term till death in jail, in the sensational case of the kidnapping of 13 minor children and murdering at least 5 of them, that rocked the state in the early 1990s.

The accused, Seema Mohan Gavit, 39, and Renuka Kiran Shinde, 45, were arrested by Maharashtra Police in 1996 and have so far spent around 25 years under the shadow of the hangman’s noose, at the Yerawada Central Jail, Pune.

Another prime accused and their mother, Anjana, who was also arrested and charged in the case, passed away in 1998 during the pendency of the trial.

A division bench of Justice Nitin Jamdar and Justice Sarang Kotwal commuted the death penalty, rapping the delays by the government authorities in taking a decision on the mercy pleas of the two.

In 2001, the half-sisters were convicted and awarded the death penalty by the Kolhapur Sessions Court for the stunning kidnappings of 13 children and killing 5 of them brutally.

The death sentence was confirmed by the Bombay High Court in 2004 and then the Supreme Court in 2006.

The sisters had earlier filed mercy pleas before the Governor in 2008 that were declined in August 2013, and later to the President, which was rejected in July 2014, even as people from the USA Japan, Canada, and India appealed to the President for commuting the death verdict, saying that execution of women is extremely rare.

After the rejection of their appeals from both the Governor and the President, they moved the Bombay High Court.

The matter was taken up urgently on August 19, 2014, as the two sisters awaited the gallows that day.

The Public Prosecutor issued telephonic instructions to the YCJ Jail Superintendent Yogesh Desai to stop the hangings till their pleas were heard and the matter came up on the board the following day.

The petitioners contended that the government machinery did not adhere to the rules that required utmost expediency and resorted to a “most casual approach” resulting in a delay of nearly 8 years, which the division bench upheld.

The sisters contended, through their lawyer Aniket Vagal, that the delay was attributable to the executive including the Governor and the Maharashtra Government, the Ministry of Home Affairs, and the President, which was denied by the Centre’s lawyer Sandesh Patil.

The judges noted that from the date of the sisters submitting their mercy plea on September 1, 2006 till it was finally disposed of on July 30, 2014, it took 7 years, 10 months and 15 days.

Justice Jamdar and Justice Kotwal also observed how the chronology showed that there was “nothing but the movement of files, delay, and casual approach demonstrated at each stage” and the state government moved “as if it was a routine file, perhaps even slower than that”, at each stage “officers exhibited utter casualness”.

The court also frowned at how, in the period between 2006-2014, modern electronic communication facilities, email, courier, transportation were easily available to all government officers, and termed as “abhorrent” the movement of files/papers in such a crucial matter within the state or the city after gaps of 15 days, month, six months or up to one year.

It also commented on how the matter was circulated before the court only by the petitioner-sisters in 2021 and not by the government since 2016, and the manner in which the two convicts were kept isolated in the ‘Death Convict Yard’ which has an ominous connotation, and was described as “brooding horror of hanging, daunting the prisoner in the condemned cell” by the late Justice Krishna Iyer.

However, the evidence on record shows the kids were brutally murdered, showing the “depravity” of the two convict-sisters which was “heinous and beyond words to condemn”, the bench said, ordering “life imprisonment is till the life of the convict” unless the competent authority decides otherwise, though the (convicts) were beyond reform for society.

The court also cancelled the unexecuted death warrants against the two sisters and disposed of the petition.

Crime

Delhi Police arrest notorious cyber stalker in Palam

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CRIME

New Delhi, July 2: A 21-year-old man was arrested in Delhi’s Palam village for allegedly harassing a college student by creating fake Instagram accounts and using artificial intelligence (AI) tools to generate objectionable content.

The accused was persistently stalking and defaming the victim, a college-going girl, through multiple fake Instagram profiles, Amit Goel, Deputy Commissioner of Police, South West District, said in a statement.

The complainant approached the Cyber Police Station, West District, on June 16, reporting that the accused was daily creating new accounts using her photographs, posting them with derogatory captions, and targeting her and her followers.

Acting on the complaint, the police registered a case under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).

“In view of the seriousness of the matter, a dedicated team led by SI Priyanka was formed to identify and apprehend the accused,” the statement added.

A team of PS Cyber, South-West District, arrested the notorious cyber stalker and recovered the smartphone used in the commission of the offence, the statement read.

During the investigation, it came to the fore that the accused was impersonating a female using a profile picture taken from the victim’s public Instagram account, the police said.

The police said the accused further used AI tools to convert the images into sexually explicit content and uploaded these edited pictures through fake Instagram stories.

Despite efforts to mask his identity by not linking any accounts to verifiable mobile numbers or Gmail IDs, the cyber team used advanced technical analysis to track the suspect to the Palam area of South-West Delhi. Multiple raids were conducted before he was successfully arrested.

The accused, whose identity has been withheld, confessed to the crime during interrogation, the police statement read.

Further investigation is underway.

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Crime

CBI books ex-SBI branch manager in Assam for illegal assets of Rs 80 lakh

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CBI

New Delhi, June 30: The CBI has booked a former manager of the State Bank of India branch in Assam for possessing allegedly illegal assets worth over Rs 80 lakh, an official said on Monday.

Pinku Kumar, former Branch Manager, SBI, Ramkrishnanagar Branch, Karimganj, is also facing a separate investigation over his alleged collusion in a multi-crore scam involving sanction of loans using forged documents, the official said.

CBI’s Shillong-based Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) registered the latest Disproportionate Assets case against Pinku Kumar on June 27 after receiving a complaint from a preliminary investigator.

The complaint alleged commission of criminal misconduct by Pinku Kumar while intentionally enriching himself illicitly, during the check period from April 1, 2019 to March 27, 2025.

During this period, he was found in possession of pecuniary resources/property, disproportionate to his known sources of income which he cannot satisfactorily account for, to the tune of Rs 99.20 lakh -(81.84 per cent DA), said the CBI FIR filed against the former bank manager.

Taking note of the preliminary probe conducted in the matter of criminal misconduct, the CBI’s FIR said, “The facts mentioned in the aforesaid complaint, prima facie, reveal commission of congnizable offences, punishable under Section 13(2) read with 13(1)(b) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (as amended 2018) on the part of Pinku Kumar.”

Section 13 of the Act defines various forms of criminal misconduct by public servants. These include actions like abusing their position, misappropriating property, or possessing assets disproportionate to their known sources of income.

Earlier in March, the CBI booked Pinku Kumar twice in separate corruption cases naming two brokers Sumen Paul and Jadab Paul, along with the former, in each of the cases.

Raids conducted by the federal agency in these two cases led to seizure of 481 grams of gold, 11.11 gram of diamond-studded jewellery and 1,092 gram silver.

The CBI investigation showed that the former bank manager conspired with the two brokers and allegedly approved loans base on forged papers, leading to a loss of crores of rupees to the SBI.

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Crime

Kolkata law college rape case: College ignored criminal antecedents of accused

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Kolkata, June 30: As the investigation into the rape of a law student within her college premises at Kasba in South Kolkata, West Bengal, continues, information has surfaced that the said college authorities allegedly ignored criminal antecedents of one of the three prime accused, Monojit Mishra, while giving him contractual employment.

Sources said Mishra originally got admission for the LLB course in the same college in 2012.

In 2013, he was booked in a police case on charges of hooliganism in the Kalighat area in South Kolkata, in which he chopped off the finger of an individual.

Thereafter, his admission at the same college was cancelled, and he remained absconding and away from the state for over three years. He returned to Kolkata after the case against him was settled and got re-admission at the same college in 2017.

Again in March 2018, two female students of the same college accused him of sexual harassment, following which he was partially suspended for some time from attending the college, except for appearing for examinations. However, somehow the matter against him did not proceed for a long time, and he started attending the college regularly.

In March 2023, he was again accused of sexual harassment by a female student of the college. In December 2023, some students filed a complaint at the local police station, accusing Mishra of entering the college with outsider anti-social elements and beating them up.

Now, questions are being raised about how the college authorities gave him a contractual appointment, ignoring his criminal antecedents.

College insiders said that Mishra happened to be an extremely close confidant of the ruling party MLA, who is also in the governing body of the same college, whom the accused used to address as “uncle”.

Questions have started surfacing on why just “initials” of the three persons accused of raping a law college student in Kolkata were mentioned in the FIR instead of full names.

The names of the three accused are Monojit Mishra, Jaib Ahmed, and Pramit Mukhopadhyay, all linked to the Trinamool Congress’ student wing, Trinamool Chhatra Parishad (TMCP).

However, in the FIR registered in the case, the three accused persons were referred to as “M”, “J” and “P”.

While the leaders of the opposition parties claim that this mention of just the initials of the three accused in the FIR was done deliberately by the cops to conceal the fact that the accused persons were linked to TMCP, even legal experts feel that in this case, there was no reason for the police to mention just the initials instead of the names.

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