KOLKATA: A trial court is set to deliver the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital rape-murder verdict on January 18, more than five months after a 31-year-old junior doctor was violated and brutally killed in the state government-run institute, setting off a wave of protests in Kolkata, ripples of which were felt around the country.
CBI, which is investigating the matter, demanded death for Sanjay Roy, the primary accused, in its closing arguments on Thursday at the Sealdah sessions court, citing multiple reports: biological samples, CCTV footage analysis, testimonies of 50 witnesses – which, it said, proved he was the sole perpetrator of the ‘monstrous crime’. The Central agency’s lawyers also said that the rape-murder was a ‘rarest of rare’ crime, fit for capital punishment.
Roy has been implicated under 103(1), 64, and 66 of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), which deal with murder, rape and for causing death or leaving the victim in a persistent vegetative state. If convicted, Roy will either be sentenced to death or face a life behind bars.
Defence lawyer Sourav Bandyopadhyay, chief of the Legal Aid Defence Council Service, South 24 Parganas, said in his final submission that his client was innocent, and that he was being framed by evidence planted against him.
