Veteran anti-graft crusader Anna Hazare on Tuesday demanded the death penalty for the accused in the brutal rape and murder of a minor girl in Ahmednagar district which has sent shockwaves across Maharashtra.
“The case should be tried in a fast track court and the guilty be hanged,” said the septuagenarian activist in a statement issued from his office in Ralegan Siddhi in Ahmednagar.
Violence was wreaked on the 14-year-old girl in a feral manner, with medical reports stating that her limbs were broken, her arms dislocated from her shoulders, her skin shorn from her body which had bite marks all over.
Three persons have been arrested in connection with the incident which took place in Kopardi village in the district’s Karjat tehsil last week, causing uproar within the powerful forward community to which the girl belonged. The the alleged perpetrators of the crime belonged to a lower caste.
Sharply opposing those who advocated a benign attitude and spoke against the capital punishment, Mr. Hazare, in his statement said there were occasions which simply obviated the need for mercy and that the Kopardi rape was one such case.
Dubbing the crime as a “hideous blot on the social fabric”, Mr. Hazare lauded the appointment of Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam to fight the case that has been compared to the Nirbhaya rape case in terms of the brutal and merciless violence inflicted upon its victim.
With public and political outcry steadily mounting, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has directed the inclusion of Pune Police Commissioner Rashmi Shukla as special woman officer in the Kopardi inquiry.
While near-complete shutdowns called by outfits and political parties in many districts across the State threw public life off-kilter, an all-party ‘bandh’ in Latur district took a hostile turn with irate agitators torching a State Transport bus on Tuesday.
While some political groups have attempted to espouse the cause of the Maratha community and score political points, other social outfits have insisted that the crime was not community specific and should be seen as a heinous act against a woman.
Meanwhile Superintendent of Police (Ahmednagar) Saurabh Tripathi informed that the probe had been handed over to the Crime Branch.
He further repudiated the gorier versions of the crime, stating that the rumours that the girl was decapitated and amputated were “baseless.”
He, however, acknowledged the unusual violence in the crime and said that the autopsy report confirmed that the victim’s death was caused by shock and asphyxia.
