Upholding a lower court order, the Madras High Court today confirmed life imprisonment for three accused in the murder of a 24-year-old woman IT employee near her office on the city outskirts more than two years ago.
A division bench of justices S Nagamuthu and V Bharathidasan, said there was no reason to interfere with a trial court order or to reduce the quantum of sentence in the case and confirmed life term for the three migrant workers from West Bengal -- Ram Mandal, Uttam Mandal and Ujjal Mandal.
The bench directed authorities to pay Rs two lakh to the family of the deceased from out of the Victim Compensation Fund within four months.
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A Mahila Court had pronounced all the three guilty and sentenced them to life for murdering the woman, employed with Tata Consultancy Services, who went missing on February 13, 2014. The woman's decomposed body was found at the SPICOT IT Park in Siruseri, nine days later.
The investigation into the case was transferred to Crime Branch CID on the orders of the then Chief Minister Jayalalithaa and the three were arrested when they tried to use her ATM card.
At the time of the arrests, police had said the woman was waylaid, dragged to a nearby bush and assaulted by the accused when she was walking on a footpath on the main road, which was about one km from the IT park campus.
The murder brought to sharp focus safety issues concerning women IT employees, especially those leaving office in late hours, and prompted software companies to clamp preventive measures, including mandatory use of office vehicle for those working beyond 8 PM.
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Dismissing the appeals filed by the accused challenging the lower court judgement, the bench said, "Prosecution has proved beyond any doubt by means of cogent and convincing circumstantial evidence that these three accused alone were the perpetrators of the crime."
It said the trial court acquitted the three from charge of rape for want of sufficient evidence but so far as the other charges were concerned, it has considered the evidence meticulously and found they had wrongfully restrained the deceased, took her to nearby secluded place, killed and robbed her.
"Thus we do not find any infirmity in the judgment of conviction recorded by the trail court," the bench said.
The bench, while ordering payment of compensation to the parents, said, "...Though the loss cannot be compensated we feel that monetary compensation may to some extent wipe out their tears. We feel that this is a fit case where we have to order for the payment of a compensation of Rs 2,00,000 under the Tamil Nadu Victim Compensation Scheme, 2013.
