Nayana Pujari rape and murder case: All three accused convicted, quantum of punishment to come on Tuesday

Almost eight years after the brutal rape and murder of a 28-year-old Pune techie Nayana Pujari, a sessions court has convicted the three accused in the 2009 case, India Today reported. [caption id=“attachment_3430618” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. AFP[/caption] The judiciary has recently pronounced judgement on two more rape cases. While in Jyoti Singh’ rape and murder case, the Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence of the convicts, in Bilkis Bano case, 11 men accsused of gangraping the girl, then 19 years old, were sentenced to life imprisonment. Pujari’s husband has said that justice will only be delivered if the convicts are sentenced to death. The quantum of punishment will be pronounced on Tuesday by Special judge LL Yenkar, who is the fourth judge to preside over the case since 2011, The Indian Express reported. Meanwhile, according to report in  The Times of India from September 2010_,_ convicts in the case were not first time offenders. The news report states that there was some evidence that the trio had raped and murdered a 22-year-old woman in a similar manner just three months before they  targeted Pujari. While one of the accused in the case, Rajesh Chaudhary later turned approver in the case, three others, Yogesh Raut, Mahesh Thakur, Vishwas Kadam have been convicted in the case under the charges of rape, murder, criminal conspiracy and kidnapping. According to India Today, the final arguments in the case were heard about two months back, nearly five years after the sessions court started hearing the case. Pujari, a 28-year-old software engineer, was abducted by the three men on 7 October 2009, while she was on the way to her home. Pujari was abducted under the pretext of offering her a lift in the car. According to the public prosecutor, three of the accused gangraped her in the moving car while robbing her of Rs 61,000. The four accused later killed the victim in Zarewadi forests in the outskirts of Pune. Pujari’s body was later recovered two days later.