‘Don’t want death penalty for them’: Soumya Vishwanathan’s mother on 4 killers
Soumya Vishwanathan’s mother Madhavi said they did not want death penalty for their daughter’s killers. “We want them to suffer like we are suffering”
NEW DELHI: As the judge was reading out the court’s finding on the guilt of the five men charged with Soumya Vishwanathan’s murder 15 years ago, her mother, Madhavi Vishwanathan clasped her hands and buried her head in her hands.
Four men, Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Ajay Kumar and Baljeet Malik, were convicted by the judge for the murder of a 26-year-old TV journalist shot dead on her way home in Vasant Kunj after her shift on September 30, 2008. Their fifth accomplice, Ajay Sethi, was convicted of receiving stolen property. According to the verdict, Sethi has been held to be guilty under Section 411 of the IPC and sections 3(2) and 3(5) of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act.
“We have been fighting for 15 years... It’s a relief but we have lost our daughter,” Madhavi Vishwanathan told HT.
The judge has fixed the date for sentencing on October 26.
“We are not in favour of the death penalty. We want them to suffer like we are suffering,” she said, adding that the punishment they are hoping for is life imprisonment.
MK Vishwanathan, Soumya’s father said: “There’s no happiness... I will never get my daughter back.”
Madhavi said her elder daughter, who is now in Nairobi, recalled how her husband was convinced that the four would get convicted today.
Investigators had struggled to crack Soumya Vishwanathan’s murder for months. The breakthrough came during their probe into the murder of IT executive Jigisha Ghosh’s killers in March 2009. The Delhi Police had declared that the same three men had allegedly killed journalist Soumya Vishwanathan too.
