Sakinaka rape-murder case: Mumbai court awards death sentence to accused

Mumbai, Jun 03: A court in Mumbai pronounced death sentence to the convict in the Sakinaka rape and murder case of a woman. The brutal case had sparked a massive public outcry, with Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray assuring speedy justice. The Mumbai Police had filed a chargesheet in less than three weeks of the incident.

The convict, Mohan Kathwaru Chauhan, had raped and murdered a 34-year-old woman inside a parked tempo in suburban Mumbai's Sakinaka area, in a case that bore disturbing parallels to the gang-rape, torture and murder of a physiotherapy intern in Delhi in December 2012.

Additional Sessions Judge H. C. Shende, in line with what the prosecution had sought, gave the death sentence citing that the case falls under the category of rarest of rare cases. The prosecution had said, Chauhan brutalised the woman fatally and left no chance of her survival.

The Mumbai Police in the chargesheet had said, Chauhan knew the woman and she had been avoiding him, which prompted him to track her down and attack her.

After the Sakinaka case, the Mumbai Police had set up a Special Squad staffed with women at every Police Station and intensified patrolling in areas where crime against women were believed to be high.