While Sanjay Roy was given life imprisonment on Monday in the RG Kar rape and murder case, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was flying to Malda from Murshidabad. However, soon after landing and upon being informed about the court decision, she reiterated her demand for Roy’s capital punishment. She also criticised the CBI for failing to secure the death penalty in the case.
“We have always demanded capital punishment and we still stick to our demand,” the chief minister said during a media interaction in Malda district where she reached following her administrative outreach programme in Murshidabad.
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“I cannot say anything about the court verdict but I can talk about myself and my party,” she continued. “We ensured capital punishment within 54 and 60 days in three rape cases. But I don’t understand why the death sentence was not ordered in this big case.”
On December 6 last year, a special POCSO court in South 24 Parganas district’s Baruipur sentenced the main accused to the death penalty after he was found guilty of raping and murdering a minor girl in October.
In a similar case, a local court in Murshidabad district ordered a death sentence to the main accused within 61 days after he raped and murdered an underage girl. In another similar case in Hooghly’s Gurap, the court ordered a death sentence within 54 days of the crime.
In Malda, CM Banerjee claimed that if the investigation had remained under the jurisdiction of the West Bengal government, the state would have ensured Roy received the death penalty.
Criticising the CBI lawyers, she said, “I’m not sure how the lawyers handled the case or what arguments they presented. The case was taken out of our hands deliberately and handed over to the CBI.”
“These oppressors deserve strict punishment. I can’t talk about all the details of the case, but as a lawyer myself, it would have consoled my heart if the death sentence was given,” she added.
Stating that it was not a “rarest of the rare” case, additional district and sessions judge Anirban Das at the Sealdah Civil and Criminal Court ordered lifetime imprisonment for Roy. The former civic volunteer of Kolkata Police was found guilty under BNS sections 64, 66 and 103 (1) where the minimum punishment was life imprisonment and the maximum would have been the death sentence.
The court also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 and asked the state to compensate the victim’s family with Rs 17 lakh as she was killed at her workplace while she was on duty.