Arya murder case: Death sentence to convict

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In a landmark judgement, which the prosecution attributed as a fitting tribute to Nirbhaya, the Principal Sessions court on Friday awarded death sentence to the lone accused Rajesh Kumar.
Judge B Sudheendra Kumar observed that the 30 year old youngster, who committed the heinous crime of rape and murder of a 10th standard girl, didn’t deserve any sympathy.The incident took place on March 6, 2012 at Vettikode, near Vembayam and the case is hailed as one of the fastest settled rape and murder case in the country.
Vijayakumar, Arya's father, said he was happy that the deserved punishment was handed over to the accused. Hundreds of people assembled at the Principal Sessions court premises on Thursday evening to hear the pronouncement of verdict.
Rajesh Kumar, an auto driver from Kattakkada, was passing by Arya's house at Vettinad near Vattappara when his vehicle met with a minor accident. He approached Arya's house where she was alone at that time. He raped her and strangled her to death and took away the gold ornaments worth 1.5 sovereigns. Later, he pledged the ornaments at a private finance enterprise at Vettinad under bogus name and address. Rajesh was caught by the police a week after the incident. The investigation team led by rural district police chief A J Thomas Kutty comprised Attingal DySP P Prasanth, circle inspectors S Shaji, K R Biju and R Asok Kumar and sub-inspectors K R Biju and S Ashrafudeen.
The prosecution had slapped charges of rape with murder, murder for gain, theft and destruction of evidence. But the court found him not guilty of the charge of destruction of evidence as the prosecution failed to prove it in the trial. District public prosecutor S K Asok Kumar and advocates R Ajayakumar, Powdikonam S Radhakrishnan, Kovalam B Vijayan, Sudha Shaji, Sampath K L, Kavitha and Sivakumaran Nair appeared for the prosecution side.