Dhananjoy Chatterjee - AN innocent person judicially killed by the state
The Republic of Republic of India celebrated fifty seven years of its political independence on fifteenth August, 2004. The newspapers of that day had carried the news of the country's freedom from being with a wide scorned soul. it had been rumored that Dhananjoy Chatterjee, guilty aggressor and criminal of a fourteen-year recent girl, had been hanged to death. For variety of individuals, this was an incident to replicate on the knowledge of the execution. for several others, it had been an instant of revived religion that the system will deliver justice.
As a normal reader of newspapers, I had followed the story of this hanging throughout the monsoon of 2004. My suspicion concerning the case was aroused by the reports of Dhananjoy's walking to the instrument of execution with dignity and his wish everybody well. i used to be notably intrigued by his declaration that he was being hanged despite his complete innocence – just because he was poor. I shared my thoughts with some friends. we tend to set to seek out out the reality. Over ensuing few years, we tend to circumstantially examined the case records, together with judgments of 3 courts, testimonies of witnesses, inquest, post mortem and rhetorical reports, the primary info report and alternative documentary evidences. we tend to spoke to the law enforcement officials, rhetorical consultants, post mortem doctors, lawyers and witnesses concerned within the case, visited the placement of the crime and spoke to the neighbours, visited Dhananjoy's village home and spoke to the native folks.
We spent several hours within the National Library, attempting to create sense of the newspaper reports revealed in 1990 shortly when the murder. What we tend to found was adequate to present anyone a sickish feeling within the abdomen. The conclusion was that within the name of justice, the state had killed AN innocent man. the $64000 killer had got away with murder. If you count Dhananjoy, it had been a case of double murder.
This conclusion was most contrary to the conclusion of the courts that we tend to had to take care. we tend to got the logic of our findings reviewed by peers. we tend to invited variety of rhetorical consultants, together with 3 former administrators of the State rhetorical research lab, to a seminar and asked them to dissect our analysis. There was complete accord concerning our main findings. at the moment we tend to set to inform the planet what we've got come back to grasp. A book titled Adalat-Media-Samaj ebong Dhananjoyer Fansi (Judiciary-Media-Society and Dhanajoy's hanging) has embark this month. the complete set of documents that forms the idea of our conclusions has been uploaded within the web site computer network.india-hanged-innocent.org, so anyone will verify the correctness of our inferences. The essential logic of Dhananjoy's conviction The murder transpire in a very third floor lodging of a six storied house in Bhawanipore, Central Kolkata. Hetal Parekh, the victim, had fall into place when showing for her category X board examination at around lunch period, and remained there along side her mother for many hours thenceforth. The mother had gone go in the afternoon for AN hour. when her come, she couldn't get her girl to open the doorway door of the flat. once folks gathered and stony-broke the door open, Hetal's natural object was discovered on the ground. throughout the transient amount of the mother's absence, the sole individual that was seen getting into or going away the building was Dhananjoy Chatterjee, AN off-duty watchman. when the natural object was found, Dhananjoy wasn't seen within the section. The on-obligation guard and his director told the court that Dhananjoy had entered the casualty's level in order to make a telephone call, and had even addressed them from the gallery of that correct level. 2 months when the murder, once Dhananjoy had been captured from his village home, the police had recovered a articulatio radiocarpea watch purloined from the crime scene and a shirt with a missing button that had been taken from the crime scene. Post mortem examination had confirmed that the victim had been raped. Thus, there was a lot of evidence against Dhananjoy, and there was nobody else WHO might have presumably committed the crimes inside the slim amount of absence of the victim's mother. it's on the idea of this argument that the courts terminated that Dhananjoy should have committed the crime. Our findings concerning what truly happened although Dhananjoy had received the execution for the crime of murder, it had been the rape that created the crime look notably ghastly. when collating and finding out the post mortem and rhetorical reports, we tend to were stunned by the dearth of proof of rape. In response to the police's question concerning whether or not the victim had been raped, the autopsy doctor solely wrote that she had been subjected to sexual activity before her death, as proved by contemporary tear within the hymen and matted bush, sample of that later discovered the presence of seed. nevertheless there's no indication that the intercourse was a violent incident. In fact, most of the injuries were within the face and therefore the neck space, whereas there was no injury within the breasts or the privates. seed and blood were found within the victim's pantie and petticoat, however no seed was found in her duct swab. These findings indicate that there was a delicate and accordant intercourse followed by ejaculation outside the epithelial duct, and so the partners had dressed up. Indeed, the victim's partner in sex and her assaulter were seemingly to vary persons altogether. The autopsy doctor didn't see the rhetorical findings that he had himself sent away samples. He opined in court that the victim had been raped, however admitted that this conclusion was supported the police's requisition for the post mortem examination, within which their suspicion of rape was mentioned. the 2 'eye-witnesses' WHO claimed to own seen Dhananjoy within the balcony of the victim's flat had undoubtedly song.
The spot within the ground floor, from wherever the on-duty guard claimed to own spoken to Dhananjoy, lies within the building. we've got verified, when visiting the placement, that the third floor balcony isn't even visible from that place. each the witnesses had been workers of the personal security agency that had been harassed to clear their name when the murder happened below their watch. there have been twenty 2 sets of injuries. No weapon was used. These facts purpose towards random murder. The time window of Dhananjoy's entry to the building and his exit, represented by the eyewitnesses, wasn't adequate for a scenario for murder to develop, for him to impose all those injuries and additionally to commit the alleged felony of the articulatio radiocarpea watch. The assault on the victim had been brutal so. She had been repeatedly damaged and showered with punches and blows before being smothered to death. Her nose and os had been broken. Anyone inflicting these injuries would be drenched sweat. it's virtually not possible for AN outsider to urge away with unstained garments when committing this crime, with none abnormality in look detected by anyone. These problems wouldn't arise if the offender had been a resident of the flat. a correct investigation of this case cannot exclude the immediate members of the victim's family. After all, they'd alerted the police quite 3 hours when the murder had been discovered. The police had merely assumed that the victim's mother wasn't gift once the murder transpire. Yet, per the prosecution witnesses, she had been the sole individual that was with the victim for many of the afternoon – going away aside her transient amount of absence. She had all the time within the world, also because the requisite physique, to commit the crime and stop working. The findings of the post mortem examination square measure additional per incidence of the death before Mrs. Parekh's departure than when it. This matter has been analysed intimately within the book.
Presence of seed within the victim's bush indicates that the sex had happened shortly before her death, as a bigger time gap would have multiplied the probabilities of the seed being washed off. there's sturdy indication that Hetal had came to her housing a minimum of associate hour later than the time claimed by the prosecution. Contrary to press reports, she was eighteen years more matured at that point. If she volitionally had physical intimacy with anyone, it had been entirely her business. However, her family was a conservative one. however they might have reacted to any information or hint of her activities may be a matter of conjecture. In between the claimed time of Hetal's come and her actual come, Dhananjoy had been at security duty within the house wherever the Parekhs lived. Thus, the person committed her had to be somebody else. Mrs. Parekh had acted hastily once she ordered servants to interrupt open the doorway door of her flat. She failed to try and contact her female offspring through either intercommunication system or phonephone. As presently because the body was discovered, she raised the body all by herself and commenced off for the hospital. However, once reaching the bottom floor by elevator, she remained sitting within the elevator with the body on her lap. 2 doctors came and examined Hetal within the elevator, pronounced her dead, and suggested that the police ought to be alerted. Yet Mrs. Parekh stayed place within the elevator till her son came. This apparently freaky behaviour makes excellent sense in a very scenario wherever the cold natural object is wanted to be shielded from the bit of the overall public, UN agency would possibly suspect that the murder came about many hours past. Mrs. Parekh had avoided deposing in court fourfold before she eventually testified. at intervals a couple of months of the murder, the whole Parekh family had resettled fleetly and for good to urban center. This meant that Hetal's father, then sixty two years more matured, had to land up his established business in Kolkata. The Parekhs had to dump a sprawling three-bedroom flat in central Kolkata and begin living in a very a lot of smaller flat in urban center. Hetal's brother, UN agency was being sleek for the close corporation, had to require up a paid job in urban center. The brother was learning at school XI once the relocation came about. The court case on Hetal's murder was nevertheless to start out. The family should have had some reason to run faraway from Kolkata. Ever since the murder, the family had systematically avoided attention of the media. They did thus even round the time of Dhananjoy's execution. However, they failed to pull away from collaborating in fabrication of proof to implicate Dhananjoy. though these findings don't comprise an entire theory of however the murder came about, there's enough reason to suspect that it had been the victim's mother, instead of Dhananjoy, UN agency was concerned within the murder. The investigating had relied an excessive amount of on the account given by the victim's family. The prosecution aforementioned in court that the investigation started once the police obtained the preliminary facts of the case from the victim's family. Going by this account, the police had not started the investigation once man. Prasun Mukherjee, the then Deputy Commissioner of Detective Department, Lalbazar, briefed the media concerning the 'facts' of the case, whereas sitting within the Parekh's flat. He aforementioned that Dhananjoy Chatterjee was absconding and therefore the police were suspecting him of the crime. 3 days once the murder, there was a illustration from the Gujarati Samaj of Calcutta to the Chief Minister, referring specifically to the current case and expressing the sense of worry and insecurity among the Gujaratis living within the Bhawanipore space. Thus, there was pressure on the govt to unravel the case quickly. Mrs. Parekh's statement to the police was considered the primary info report (FIR) of the case. we've got proof that a minimum of some elements of this 'statement' couldn't are hers. we've got proof that the peace officer, UN agency had claimed in court that he recorded this statement, was really doing a distinct kind of duty within the ground floor at the terribly time once he claimed to own recorded it. we have a tendency to even have proof that the police had tampered with the FIR before tardily submitting it to the functionary. it's not clear what quantity interrogation Mrs. Parekh two-faced, if at all. She was allowed to depart for urban center at intervals seven days of the murder. The story eventually bestowed by the prosecution in court was basically the story told by man. Prasun Mukherjee to the media on the premise of the family's version of events, embellished with dubious 'proofs'. in a very shell, the investigating consisted of fitting proof to a pre-conceived theory.
Our findings concerning the judicial selections The courts relied on dubious inputs. we've got proof that the alleged seizure of carpus watch and shirt with missing button was really a staged event. The police had used folks beneath their direct influence as witnesses to those seizures. They didn't manufacture one in all the them in court, whereas the opposite witness has currently gone public along with his statement that he had acted as pretend witness to a phoney seizure, besieged from the police. I even have already mentioned obvious lies of 2 crucial eyewitnesses. whereas false witnesses were relied upon, deposition of a incontrovertibly real witness wasn't properly used. The court declared him a witness. Dhananjoy's case wasn't fought properly within the inferior court, as there was shortage of resources. There was an honest professional, however he failed to get expected fees. it's clear from court records that in some occasions he failed to even bear in mind the proceedings of the previous day. The courts were persuaded of Dhananjoy's guilt partly by his act of absconding. The Supreme Court gave explicit stress on his absconding forthwith once the crime, once no one named him as associate suspect. This was a mere oversight by the Court, because the records show that Mrs. Parekh had named Dhananjoy as associate suspect forthwith once the crime. The judges couldn't fathom another theory partially as a result of they ne'er questioned the conclusion of rape, even supposing the proof was problematic. The judges have admitted that they were discharging a social responsibility whereas handing out the deaths sentence to Dhananjoy. it's clear from their observations that Dhananjoy had to pay the worth for non-conviction and/or lenient sentencing in different cases involving flagitious crimes. A division bench of an equivalent court recognized in 2013 that the award of execution to Dhananjoy was a case of wrong sentencing. What to try to to with the findings Dhananjoy's case exposes the laxities within the general and human elements of our investigation and judicial processes. it's currently clear that these laxities square measure thus serious that they will even cause the judicial killing of associate innocent person. This chilling truth ought to spur corrective action. There ought to be official reinvestigation of the case, identification of the $64000 culprits and late exoneration of Dhananjoy. There square measure several instances of judicial exoneration of murder convicts within the Western world and even in China. There was such a case in Asian nation beneath British rule conjointly. Dhananjoy deserves to be the primary one in freelance Asian nation. On March 5, 1990 Hetal Parekh was found lying dead in her third floor housing in Bhawanipore, Kolkata. The police started loking for Dhananjoy, the sole doable suspect. The police began investigation. For consecutive few weeks he did not come about for work. Dhananjoy was finally in remission on might twelve from Kuludihi. The Alipore Sessions Court sentenced Dhananjoy to death on August twelve. The Calcutta state supreme court then confirmed his sentence on August seven, 1992. The Supreme Court command the case as a 'rarest of the rare' class and confirmed his death sentence on Gregorian calendar month eleven. He filed a review petition before the SC, that was later fired. He filed a mercy petition with the Governor of state on Groundhog Day. fortnight later, he was aware that the Governor had refused to interfere within the matter. On November fourteen, the one decide fired the official document petition. He then filed a official document petition within the HC once more. A divisions bench fired his petition on Gregorian calendar month eight. The SC in March, command that the Governor had rejected his mercy petition while not correct thought of the relevant facts. By May, the Governor had rejected all petitions and Dhananjoy was regular to be dead. the house Ministry too suggested his sentence. By March, Dhananjoy had been incarcerated in Alipore Central Jail for over fourteen years by this point. He spent his time before execution, taking note of pious songs. Dhananjoy Chatterjee was dead at 4:30 am on August fourteen. The day was conjointly his thirty ninth birthday. Debates before execution Dhananjoy's execution was regular on twenty five June 2004 however it had been stayed once his family petitioned the Supreme Court of Asian nation, and filed a mercy plea with the then President Late Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam. On twenty six June 2004 a campaign to make sure Dhananjoy's hanging was initiated. Mrs. Meera Bhattacharjee, wife of Mr. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee the then Chief Minister of state, was at the forefront of this campaign. She created an ardent plea for Dhananjoy's hanging once providing details of the crime (e.g., that the rape was committed on a 14-year-old woman once she had been murdered) that square measure contradicted by proof on record.] many people and human rights teams came forward to oppose the execution. The mercy plea was finally rejected by the president on four August 2004. The family refused to assert his body; it had been later cremated. The date of Dhananjoy's execution was mounted at an abnormal state meeting at the working environment of Jail Minister Biswanath Chowdhury. This was the essential hanging in state since twenty one August 1991, once kill convicts, Kartick Sil and Sukumar Burman, were hanged at Alipore Jail.
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