<p>The Kerala High Court on Tuesday upheld the verdict of a lower court that sentenced a man to death for pushing a 23-year-old woman passenger off a running train and raping her, leading to her death in hospital five days later.<br /><br /></p>.<p>The death penalty for rape and murder comes exactly a year after the equally tragic gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student in a moving bus in Delhi, for which similar punishment has been meted out to the culprits, barring one juvenile convict. <br /> <br />The high court division bench in Kochi dismissed the appeal made by Govindachami (32)—the sole accused in the case of rape and murder of Soumya, a 23-year-old woman—against the Thrissur fast-track court’s verdict in 2011.<br /><br />According to the prosecution Govindachami, who is from Virudhachalam in Tamil Nadu, tried to rob Soumya in the women’s compartment of the Ernakulam-Shoranur passenger train and pushed her off the speeding train on February 1, 2011. <br /><br />He then jumped off the train and raped the injured girl. Soumya, who had suffered serious head injuries, died in hospital in Thrissur five days later. <br /></p>
<p>The Kerala High Court on Tuesday upheld the verdict of a lower court that sentenced a man to death for pushing a 23-year-old woman passenger off a running train and raping her, leading to her death in hospital five days later.<br /><br /></p>.<p>The death penalty for rape and murder comes exactly a year after the equally tragic gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student in a moving bus in Delhi, for which similar punishment has been meted out to the culprits, barring one juvenile convict. <br /> <br />The high court division bench in Kochi dismissed the appeal made by Govindachami (32)—the sole accused in the case of rape and murder of Soumya, a 23-year-old woman—against the Thrissur fast-track court’s verdict in 2011.<br /><br />According to the prosecution Govindachami, who is from Virudhachalam in Tamil Nadu, tried to rob Soumya in the women’s compartment of the Ernakulam-Shoranur passenger train and pushed her off the speeding train on February 1, 2011. <br /><br />He then jumped off the train and raped the injured girl. Soumya, who had suffered serious head injuries, died in hospital in Thrissur five days later. <br /></p>
