Stating that the convict was not capable of reformation and showed no remorse, the Bombay high court (HC) on Thursday upheld and confirmed the death sentence pronounced by a special women’s court against Chandrabhan Sanap in 2015. Sanap was sentenced to death for the rape and murder of Esther Anuhya, a 23-year-old software engineer from Andhra Pradesh, in 2014.
Anuhya was murdered shortly after she arrived in Mumbai from Visakhapatnam on January 5, 2014. Sanap offered her a lift on his two-wheeler at Lokmanya Tilak railway Terminus (LTT) and then murdered her at Kanjurmarg and stole her luggage, including a laptop. The engineer’s burnt and decomposed body was found on January 17 at Bhandup. The Government Railway Police (GRP) came across CCTV footage in which she was seen with Sanap, who was 29 years old at the time. The Mumbai crime branch arrested him on March 3.
The HC was hearing a case filed by the state to confirm the death sentence. The hearing began on February 27, 2017, and all arguments were concluded on November 1. During the hearing, the bench of justices Ranjit More and Bharati Dangre allowed Sanap to prove if he was innocent. However, the judges dismissed the defence’s plea for leniency on the ground of Sanap’s good conduct as an undertrial. They said Sanap was “a menace to the society” and that he showed no possibility of reformation.
According to the bench, the “motivation of the perpetrator, vulnerability of the victim, enormity of the crime, the execution thereof were factors which normally weighed with the court in awarding the death sentence”. #mumbai
