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Delhi

Convicts killed Jigisha for pleasure, be given death: Cops

A city court will pronounce the quantum of sentence to three men convicted for murdering and robbing IT executive Jigisha Ghosh here in 2009 on Monday, with the Delhi Police on Saturday seeking death penalty for them saying that they killed her for “pleasure” and showed no remorse.

Additional Sessions Judge Sandeep Yadav reserved the order on the sentence, after the arguments concluded on Saturday and a pre-sentencing report (PSR) was submitted by probationary officer. 

“The pre-sentencing report has been received... The copy has been supplied to the counsel for the convicts and arguments have been heard. The order on the sentence will be pronounced on Monday,” the judge said, after hearing the arguments of prosecution, convicts and perusing the pre-sentencing report that gave out details about the background of the guilty persons. However, the judge ordered for maintaining confidentiality of the report.

Jigisha, 28, working with management consultancy firm, was abducted and killed on March 18, 2009, after she was dropped by her office cab around 4am hours near her home in Vasant Vihar. Her body was recovered three days later from a place near Surajkund in Haryana, police had said. 

Seeking death sentence for the convicts – Ravi Kapoor, Baljeet and Amit Shukla, Special Public Prosecutor Rajiv Mohan argued that they had abducted Jigisha, robbed her, killed her and used her debit card for shopping, and a CCTV footage of their shopping showed they had no remorse for their act. “There was no provocation. There is no mitigating factor in the matter. It was murder for pleasure. The footage shows they had no remorse at all, which is aggravating,” he said.

Rebutting the prosecution’s arguments, the defence counsel has sought the minimum life sentence for the convicts, contending that they did not have a criminal record and were young at the time of the incident.

Advocate Amit Kumar, appearing for convicts Baljeet and Amit Shukla, argued that his clients had already spent over seven years in jail and had maintained good conduct. The counsel for convict Ravi Kapoor sought leniency for him, saying that he has suffered from a life-threatening disease and belonged to a poor family.

The defence counsel also termed the PSR contradictory and biased contending that it did not mention the incident when Shukla was brutally beaten up inside the jail.

During arguments when the SPP referred to the alleged involvement of the three convicts in the Soumya Vishwanathan murder case, the defence counsel objected to it saying it was a separate case that was still pending and referring to it would cause them prejudice during the proceedings.

The court had, a month ago, held the three men guilty of murder, abduction, robbery, forgery and common intention under the IPC, saying it was “abundantly clear” that they had committed the crime. Kapoor was also convicted for the offence of using firearms under the Arms Act.

While convicting them on July 14, the judge had said “they committed her murder and disposed of her body in bushes and circumstantial evidence makes it clear that it was these men who committed the crime.”  The police had filed a charge-sheet in the case in June 2009 and trial began in April 2010.

Recovery of the weapon allegedly used in Jigisha’s murder had led to the cracking of the murder case of Soumya Vishwanathan, who was a journalist with a news channel. Soumya was shot dead on September 30, 2008 while she was returning home in her car from office in the wee hours.
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