Death penalty to Mumbai techie Esther Anuhya’s rapist-murderer

A special women’s court on Friday sentenced 28-year-old petty thief Chandrabhan Sanap to death for brutally raping and murdering 23-year-old Andhra techie Esther Anuhya in January last year. On Tuesday, special judge Vrushali Joshi had pronounced Sanap guilty.

On Wednesday, during the arguments on the quantum of sentence even as the special public prosecutor Raja Thakare sought the death sentence, defence advocate Prakash Salsingekar sought life and contended that the fact that since Sanap had visited an astrologer soon after the incident and sought atonement for his sins against a woman, showed that he was remorseful and was on the path for reformation. “The fact that he had visited the astrologer on January 5, last year (hours after the incident) has been accepted by the court. This proves that he had immediately become remorseful,” defence advocate argued.

However, Thakare told the court, “The truth is that some crimes are so outrageous that society insists on adequate punishment because the wrongdoer deserves it, irrespective of whether it is a deterrent or not.” He further submitted that in the present case besides the murder charge, the Indian Penal Code section, 376 (A) (while committing rape, inflicting an injury that causes the woman’s death) under which Sanap was additionally found guilty, also attracted the maximum sentence of death.

Thakare said that this charge was the distinguishing factor between this case and two other murder cases in which the same court had awarded the life sentences. “Also the accused attempted to even burn the body after the murder to destroy the evidence and decamped with her valuables. He has committed the heinous act on an innocent, helpless woman who had trusted him like a brother to drop her home from the station,” he said.

Anuhya was working as a techie in the city and lived at the YWCA hostel. A native of Andhra Pradesh, she had boarded a train from Vijaywada to LTT on January 4 last year and was expected to arrive in the city the following morning. However, her father’s attempts to contact her on her mobile phone did not yield results, forcing him to file a missing complaint with the Vijaywada Railway Police.

The father then arrived in the city to look for his daughter and another missing complaint was lodged at Kurla police station. The last signal of Anuhya’s phone was traced to Bhandup. In his statement to the court, Prasad said that he began to look for his child along the Eastern Express Highway with the help of relatives. On January 16, last year a badly burnt body was found. With the help of the finger ring present on it, Prasad identified the body as that of his daughter.

The matter was handed over to the Crime Branch on March 2, 2014. CCTV allegedly revealed that Anuhya had arrived at LTT but had left with a man who was later identified as Sanap. A resident of Karve Nagar, Kanjurmarg, Sanap was arrested. The investigators claimed that Anuhya had accompanied him after he had agreed to drop her home on his bike.