Why a Chennai court held St Thomas Mount murder a 'rarest of rare' case & awarded death sentence to the convict?"
CHENNAI: Though D Sathish (now 33) murdered M Sathya (20) by pushing her in front of an EMU train at St Thomas Mount station in Chennai on October 13, 2022, he had planned it in advance and even tried to execute it on each of the three days prior to the incident, failing as either she did not come to the station or there was too much of a crowd.
On the fateful day, moments before he eventually pushed her with full force onto the tracks, Sathish told her to “get lost (tholaindhu podi)”, peeked to ensure that she suffered an instantaneous death and ran away from the spot.
This “monstrous mindset of eliminating a hapless victim with all vengeance” apart from a lack of remorse and repentance in jail are the reasons, stated by the Chennai Mahila Court Judge J Sridevi to hand out a ‘rarest of rare’ capital punishment to Sathish, in her December 30 judgment.
This is based on Supreme Court guidelines on the ‘rarest of rare’ doctrine for death penalty cases which requires lower courts to look into the nature and manner of crime, motive, personality of the victim and the way it puts an impact on the society. The death sentence given to Sathish is subject to confirmation of the Madras High Court. In the judgment, the court found that the crime wasn’t committed on sudden provocation.
Instead, the accused had plotted the cold-blooded murder and waited for a suitable time to execute it meticulously in a diabolical manner. This act exhibited “inhuman conduct of a ghastly manner, disturbing the moral fibre of the society,” the court said.
Sathish knew that Sathya took the train from Mount to go to her college between 11:30 am and 12:00 pm and waited on October 10 and 11, but she didn’t come on those days.
On October 12, she came to the station, but he couldn’t execute his plan, as there was a big crowd. Based on the submission of CG Hemamalini, the Puzhal Central jail’s psychologist, the court found that Sathish had shown little guilt and no repentance during custody and was instead worried about the result of the case and if he would have to spend the rest of his life in prison.
The court also noted that Sathya’s two younger sisters, one of whom was only two-and-a-half years old then, were orphaned after the crime; their father died by suicide after seeing her decapitated body, and their mother died of cancer around four months later. This aftermath of the incident, which had torn the family of the deceased apart, was also a factor considered in announcing the death penalty, the court noted.
During trial, the court also found Sathish guilty under Section 4 of Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Harassment of Women Act, as he had been following Sathya in public places, stalking her, snatching her phone and also assaulting her by dragging her hair in her college. The court examined 33 witnesses and more than 90 exhibits, including CCTV footage from the station during trial. The case was investigated by CB-CID.