A 23-year-old man has been sentenced to death by a special CBI court in Ranchi for raping and murdering a 19-year-old in 2016.
Special CBI court judge AK Mishra found Rahul Kumar, an autorickshaw driver, guilty of raping the engineering student and killing her at her home on December 15, 2016. The court also slapped a fine of Rs 20,000 on him.
The CBI took charge of the case after nearly 15 months on the direction of the Jharkhand government and arrested him in June this year.
The woman’s autopsy report revealed that she was raped before her murder. Her sister had called one of her neighbours to enquire about her well-being as she was not answering her phone.
When the neighbour went to check on her, she found her burnt body at her home. The man had poured Mobil oil on her face and burnt her to death.
The convict is a habitual offender, the police said. He was arrested in Patna for allegedly sexually assaulting a minor. He was in judicial custody for over three years after he had jumped the bail. Ten criminal cases are registered against him in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
The case triggered huge protests in Ranchi. Hundreds of students and locals participated in the protests and called the woman “Ranchi’s Nirbhaya”.