Indian police volunteer gets life sentence for raping and murdering trainee doctor
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Judge rejects death penalty for Sanjay Roy as victim’s parents suspect more were involved in killing, which sparked strikes. An Indian police volunteer has been sentenced to life in prison for the rape and murder of a junior doctor at the hospital where she worked in Kolkata, a crime that sparked nationwide protests and widespread hospital strikes last year.
![[Doctors sitting down with banners, one reading: ‘Stop violence against women']](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/e9e61f07d9862c201da6d2f88a03b1a9d4792727/0_90_5293_3175/master/5293.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
The court rejected demands for the death penalty, saying it was not a “rarest-of-rare” crime. The woman’s body was found in a classroom at the state-run RG Kar medical college and hospital on 9 August. Other doctors stayed off work for weeks to demand justice for her and better security at public hospitals.
Sanjay Roy, the police volunteer, was convicted by judge Anirban Das on Saturday, who said circumstantial evidence had proved the charges against him. Roy had claimed he was innocent and that he had been framed, and sought clemency. The federal police, who investigated the case, said the crime belonged to the “rarest-of-rare” category and Roy, therefore, deserved the death penalty.
“I do not consider it as a rarest-of-rare crime,” Das said as he sentenced Roy to life in jail on both the counts of rape and murder on Monday. “Life imprisonment, meaning imprisonment until death.”. The judge said he had come to the conclusion it was not a rarest-of-rare crime after considering all the evidence and the circumstances linked to it. He said Roy could appeal to a higher court.
