Journalist Soumya Vishwanathan’s killers handed life sentence by Delhi court

A Delhi court on Saturday sentenced four convicts in the murder of journalist Soumya Vishwanathan to life imprisonment.

The court observed that the act of the four convicts does not fall under the ‘rarest of rare’ category and hence, the death penalty cannot be imposed.

Vishwanathan, a journalist with India Today group, was shot dead in the early hours of September 30, 2008, on south Delhi's Nelson Mandela Marg while she was returning home from work. Police claimed the motive was robbery.

The court, on October 18, convicted Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Ajay Kumar, Baljeet Malik, and Ajay Sethi for murder and common intention, almost 15 years after the crime took place.

The convicts were also held guilty under provisions of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) for committing organised crime resulting in the death of the person. The offences entail the death penalty as the maximum sentence.

The court also convicted the fifth person, Ajay Sethi, under Section 411 (dishonestly receiving stolen property) and MCOCA provisions for conspiring to abet, aid or knowingly facilitate organised crime and for receiving the proceeds of organised crime.

According to the prosecution, Kapoor shot Vishwanathan with a country-made pistol on Nelson Mandela Marg while chasing the victim’s car to rob her. Shukla, Kumar and Malik were also with Kapoor.

Initially believed to be a car accident until forensic reports disclosed her cause of death as a gunshot wound to the head.