Shakti Mills gang rape: Bombay HC commutes death penalty of three
The Hindu
‘They deserve imprisonment for life to repent the offence committed by them’
The Bombay High Court on Thursday commuted to life sentence the death penalty awarded to three convicts in the gangrape of a 22-year-old photojournalist inside the defunct Shakti Mills compound in central Mumbai in 2013. The judges said they “deserve imprisonment for life to repent the offence committed by them as death puts an end to the concept of repentance”.
Terming rape as a “serious blow to the supreme honour and dignity of a woman”, the court said the convicts “do not deserve to assimilate with the society, as it would be difficult to survive in a society of such men who look upon women with derision, depravity, contempt and objects of desire”.
A Division Bench of Justices Sadhana Jadhav and Prithviraj Chavan refused to confirm the death penalty awarded to Vijay Jadhav, Mohammad Qasim Bengali Shaikh and Mohammad Ansari, and commuted their sentence to life in prison for the remainder of their lives.
Hampi, the UNESCO-recognised historical site, was the capital of the Vijayanagara empire from 1336 to 1565. Foreign travellers from Persia, Europe and other parts of the world have chronicled the wealth of the place and the unique cultural mores of this kingdom built on the banks of the Tungabhadra river. There are fine descriptions to be found of its temples, farms, markets and trading links, remnants of which one can see in the ruins now. The Literature, architecture of this era continue inspire awe.
Unfurling the zine handed to us at the start of the walk, we use brightly-coloured markers to draw squiggly cables across the page, starting from a sepia-toned vintage photograph of the telegraph office. Iz, who goes by the pronouns they/them, explains, “This building is still standing, though it shut down in 2013,” they say, pointing out that telegraphy, which started in Bengaluru in 1854, was an instrument of colonial power and control. “The British colonised lands via telegraph cables, something known as the All Red Line.”