Sakinaka Case: Accused Gets Death Sentence for Rape and Murder of Dalit Woman

Mohan Chauhan was convicted and has been sentenced to death on two counts.

Image used for representational purposes.

(Photo: The Quint)

A special court in Mumbai's Dindoshi on Thursday, 2 June, sentenced Mohan Chauhan, the 44-year old man accused of raping and killing a Dalit Woman in Sakinaka last year.

Special judge HC Shende convicted him on Monday under Sections 302 (murder), 376A (offence of rape and inflicting injury which causes death or causes the woman to be in a persistent vegetative state), 376 (2)(m) (causing grievous bodily harm or maims or disfigures or endangers the life of a woman while committing rape) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), along with sections of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and the Maharashtra Police Act, The Indian Express reported.

Chauhan was sentenced to death on two counts.

The judge termed the offence "rarest of rare" citing the brutality of the attack, which caused fatal injuries to the woman.

Background

On 9 September 2021, the woman was found lying injured at Sakinaka in Mumbai. She was then taken to a civic hospital, where she died on 11 September.

Chauhan was arrested and a charge sheet, which said that he raped a 34-year-old woman who refused to have sex with him, was filed.

He allegedly inserted a sharp object into her private parts forcefully, causing fatal injuries.

The prosecution asked for death penalty for Chauhan claiming that the sexual assault was gruesome and cold-blooded and that it involved a brutal attack on her private parts.

It was also submitted that Chauhan had shown “scant regard for womanhood”.

The incident, which occurred at odd hours, had “raised fears for women’s safety in a metropolitan city like Mumbai”, the prosecution led by Raja Thakare, Mahesh Mule, and Siddharth Jagushte, told The Indian Express.

Chauhan’s lawyer Kalpana Waskar had argued that the convict had no criminal antecedents and that his dependents, including his wife, would suffer if he was sentenced to death.

The crime could not be called "rarest of rare" because he had cooperated throughout the proceedings, the lawyer had said.

(With inputs from The Indian Express and News18.)