The Gauhati High Court has commuted the death sentence awarded to three men convicted of raping and murdering two minor girls in Assam’s Kokrajhar district, ordering them to serve life imprisonment for the remainder of their natural lives.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Ashutosh Kumar and Justice Arun Dev Choudhary upheld the convictions while answering the death reference in the negative. In its ruling, the bench held that capital punishment was not warranted because the prosecution had not established that the three convicts were incapable of reformation or rehabilitation.
Absence of Reformation Evidence Precludes Capital Sentence
Addressing the sentencing framework on September 10, the court noted that the sheer brutality of an offense cannot alone serve as proof that a convict cannot be reformed. The judges observed that the determination of a sentence must rest strictly upon evidentiary material rather than conjecture.
While acknowledging the exceptional gravity of the crime, the bench determined that an appropriate judicial balance is attained by confining the appellants to prison for their natural lives rather than sending them to the gallows.
Forensic Links Anchor Circumstantial Investigation
The case originates from June 11, 2021, when the bodies of two minor girls, aged 14 and 16, were discovered hanging from a tree in a jungle area within Kokrajhar district. Authorities registered an unnatural death case before filing a formal first information report alleging murder and criminal conspiracy, subsequently arresting three men.
Investigators presented a narrative that the victims were subjected to sexual violence, manually strangled to death, and subsequently suspended from a tree to stage the incident as a suicide. Autopsy reports corroborated that both victims died from manual strangulation and showed signs of forcible sexual assault.
Because the crime occurred without any direct eyewitnesses, the state built its case around circumstantial indicators, call detail records, tower location data, and forensic examinations. Key among the evidence was DNA profiling, which matched biological material retrieved from the bodies of the victims to the three suspects. In April 2022, a trial court found all three guilty and handed down the death penalty, forwarding the case to the High Court for confirmation.
Competing Arguments on Evidence and Proportionality
During the High Court hearings, defense counsel Azad Ahmed argued that the state’s case lacked eyewitness testimony and depended wholly on circumstantial inferences. Ahmed maintained that tower location data merely indicated the presence of the accused in the general vicinity, without establishing their physical presence at the scene of the crime or showing that they were last seen in the company of the victims. The defense also raised questions regarding the chain of custody, alleging procedural lapses in the collection and preservation of blood and semen samples.
Appearing for the victims’ family, advocate Sarfaraz Nawab countered that the prosecution’s reliance on forensic analysis conclusively bridged the evidentiary gaps typical of unwitnessed crimes. Nawab submitted that medical evidence substantiated sexual assault, while the DNA profiles identified the individual involvement of the accused. Arguing for the confirmation of the death penalty, the counsel urged the court to evaluate the profound suffering inflicted on the victims’ family and pointed out that hanging the bodies to mimic suicide served as a major aggravating circumstance.
The High Court acknowledged that the sexual assault, murder by strangulation, and subsequent staging of the scene demonstrated the grave character of the offense. However, the bench underscored that legal sentencing mandates a dual examination of both the crime and the offender, concluding that the record did not support the finality of capital punishment.
