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.
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.
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.
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.
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.