The Jharkhand High Court on Monday affirmed the death penalty for Rahul Raj, convicted of the rape and murder of a student in Ranchi in 2016. The division bench, comprising Justices Ananda Sen and Gautam Kumar Chaudhary, dismissed Raj’s appeal against the sentence previously handed down by the Ranchi district court on December 20, 2019.
The court upheld the lower court’s decision, which described the nature of the crime as brutally gruesome, warranting the maximum punishment of death. The incident, which occurred on December 15, 2016, involved Raj breaking into the young woman’s home around 4 am, shortly after she had returned from college. Following the rape, he strangled her with an iron wire, applied a lubricant to her body, and set her ablaze in an attempt to obliterate evidence.
Raj was apprehended after an intensive police search and subsequently confessed to his crimes. During the investigation, it was also uncovered that he had been involved in a previous rape of a minor girl in Patna, adding to his criminal profile.
This ruling comes amid ongoing debates over the application of capital punishment in cases of sexual assault and murder, with the court’s decision reflecting a stern stance on heinous crimes.
