S Jonathan Prasad lived a nightmare 11 years back after his 23-year-old daughter Esther Anuhya's rotten body was found on a Mumbai road. A software engineer with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Esther had just returned from holidays in her hometown Vijayawada when she was brutally raped and murdered.
Mr Prasad, crushed by the tragedy, found some solace when a Mumbai court convicted Chandrabhan Sanap of the gruesome crime and sentenced him to death in 2015. A decade later, the elderly man's wounds have been reopened after the Supreme Court acquitted Sanap yesterday. And this time, Mr Prasad does not have the strength to keep fighting.
A Chilling Rape-Murder
Esther was at her Vijayawada home for Christmas and New Year's Eve in the winter of 2013. On January 5, she returned to Mumbai after a two-week break and was last seen leaving the Lokmanya Tilak Terminus station. When her family could not contact her, they filed a missing complaint and started looking for her in Mumbai. On January 16, a decomposed body was recovered in Kanjurmarg and it was identified as Esther's. "We looked for my daughter after she went missing. Finally, after 10 days, her body was recovered. No parent should face the kind of trauma I have faced," Mr Prasad told NDTV earlier.
There were no eyewitnesses and the only clue police had was footage from a CCTV camera at the railway station. The footage showed a man with a moustache carrying Esther's bag and walking with her. A porter at the station identified him as Sanap. He was arrested in Nashik on March 3 and charged with raping and murdering Esther.
What Police Said
The case was based largely on circumstantial evidence. According to police, Sanap pretended to be a cab driver when he spotted Esther at the station on the winter morning. He offered to drive her to the south Mumbai hostel where she stayed. But on exiting the station, Esther saw Sanap did not have a cab, but a bike. Police said Sanap somehow managed to convince Esther to sit pillion.
On the way, he stopped on a service road on the Eastern Express Highway near Kanjurmarg on the pretext that the bike had run out of petrol. According to police, he dragged Esther into bushes nearby and tried to rape her. When she resisted, he hit her head on a stone many times and strangled her with her dupatta. Sanap then tried to burn Esther's body in the thick bushes and escaped with her suitcase, which had her laptop and other items.
The Conviction, And The Acquittal
In October 2015, a Mumbai court convicted Sanap of Esther's rape and murder and sentenced him to death. Awarding the sentence, special judge Vrushali Joshi said it was a rarest-of-the-rare case and qualified for the death penalty. "The case falls under the category of the rarest of rare, hence the accused is awarded the death sentence. He must be hanged by his neck till he is dead," said the judge. The Bombay High Court subsequently upheld the death penalty. The high court said such a person would remain a menace to society and that the crime warranted the death penalty.
The Supreme Court yesterday ruled that the prosecution's evidence was inadequate to sustain the conviction. The facts of the case, it said, compel the court to conclude that "there are gaping holes in the prosecution story leading to the irresistible conclusion that there is something more than what meets the eye in this case. "While the old adage, witness may lie but not the circumstances, may be correct, however, the circumstances adduced, as held by this Court, should be fully established. There is a legal distinction between 'may be proved' and 'must be or should be proved' as held by this Court. The circumstances relied upon when stitched together do not lead to the sole hypothesis of the guilt of the accused and we do not find that the chain is so complete as not to leave any reasonable ground for the conclusion consistent with the innocence of the accused," the bench of Justice BR Gavai, Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice KV Viswanathan said.
"I Leave It To God"
At his Machilipatnam home, Mr Prasad said he had heard about the Supreme Court order, but he could do nothing about it. "What can we do? We were not aware of what was happening. We also do not know that he (Sanap) approached the Supreme Court. But what shall we do? I leave it to God and whatever happens, I will not be getting my daughter back," he told news agency PTI.
The elderly man said the death penalty had given him some closure. "We appreciated that some justice was done. Now that has completely changed. I do not know the reasons. Again, I recollect my sorrowful days 10 years back, how I suffered in Mumbai," he said. Mr Prasad said police had collected ample evidence and arrested the right person.
Asked if he would pursue the case further and file a review petition in the top court, he replied, "No sir, I cannot do that. The problem is I am 70 plus. It is very difficult for me to move from my place. I am a retired man and my wife is not well, she is a diabetic. So, I don't think I can approach at this age."
