HC confirms death for three in Chhawla gang-rape, murder

The Delhi High Court Tuesday confirmed the death sentence awarded to three youths in Chhawla gang-rape and murder, saying they were "predators" moving on the streets and "were looking for a prey".

A division bench of Justice Pradeep Nandrajog and Justice Mukta Gupta upheld the trial court's February order sentencing the trio to death for abducting, raping and killing a 19-year-old girl, whose mutilated and decomposed body was found in Haryana in 2012.

The bench held that after raping the girl, the convicts battered her to death and they then "defiled her body".

"It was as if the three saw a lonely woman on street and the evil in them overtook the good in them. It is not that they acted upon a sudden impulse. They were predators moving on streets and were looking for a prey. The three snatched Anamica (name changed) from the society," said the bench in its 97-page judgment.

"Their hunter's mind was hard and unyielding. The predominant idea of finding a victim to rape and then kill her had taken such complete possession of their mind that there was no room for any emotion. Satisfying their lust and executing their design to kill helpless Anamica, the record which they left upon her dead body was a sign: this is not a common rape followed by murder," it said.

The girl was kidnapped by Rahul (27), Ravi (23) and Vinod (23) in a car near her house in Qutub Vihar, Delhi on the night of Feb 9, 2012, when she with three colleagues was returning from her Gurgaon office.

Her mutilated body was found three days later from a field in Rewari. There were multiple injuries on the body and she had been assaulted with objects ranging from car tools to earthen pots. Police said Ravi led in committing the crime as the woman had spurned his proposal for a relationship.