BPO employee rape-murder: Relative says HC verdict shocking

The brother-in-law of the Pune BPO employee, who was raped and murdered by two men in 2007, on Monday expressed anguish over the Bombay High Court's verdict commuting the death sentence of the convicts to "life term for a period of 35 years".

Terming the judgement "disheartening" and "shocking", the man appealed to the Maharashtra government to challenge it in the supreme court.

Earlier in the day, the HC cited "inordinate delay" in executing the convicts, Purushottam Borate (38) and Pradeep Kokade (32), as the ground for commuting their death sentence.

"It is not only disheartening but really shocking that we can accept the pleas of the people who murdered a young girl in cold blood. What kind of justice is this and what type of precedent we are setting?" the man asked.

"This is a classic case of a criminal exploiting the loopholes in the justice system and this gives ammunition to others who are convicted in such crimes," he told PTI.

He has appealed to Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to take up the case in the apex court for a closure.

On November 1, 2007, a Wipro BPO employee, who was then 22-year-old, got into the regular cab contracted by the company to report for her night duty in a Pune suburb.

Cab driver Borate, accompanied by his friend Kokade, changed the route and took her to a remote place, where they raped and strangled her with her dupatta. They also disfigured her face.

The duo was convicted and awarded death penalty by a sessions court in March 2012 for kidnapping, raping and murdering the woman.

"We find that the delay in executing the death penalty in the present case was undue, inordinate and unreasonable," the court has said in its judgement.

It added that the delay could have been avoided if the mercy petitions and the final execution were dealt with some sense of urgency.

Borate and Kokade were to be executed on June 24, but the high court had said on June 21 that the execution should not take place until further orders.