On Wednesday, a Delhi court rendered a major ruling, finding five defendants guilty in relation to the 2008 assassination of journalist Soumya Vishwanathan. Ravi Kapoor, Akshay Kumar, Amit Shukla, and Baljit Mallik were all found guilty of robbery and murder by the court. Encouragement and abetting the other defendants in the crime were also judged to have been committed by Ajay Sethi, the fifth accused.
Soumya Vishwanathan Case: 5 convicted for murder of journalist
The life of 25-year-old journalist Soumya Vishwanathan was cruelly taken on September 30, 2008, in Vasant Vihar’s Nelson Mandela Road, Delhi. She had a fatal gunshot wound to the head when her lifeless body was found in her car. She was heading home from work at around 3:30 AM when the horrible incident happened. The same day, a First Information Report (FIR) was filed in this matter, charging unidentified persons with murder under Section 302 of the IPC. However, the police’s investigation didn’t make any significant progress until a year after the murder. Tech enthusiast Jigisha Ghosh’s body was found in Faridabad on March 21, 2009. Three people—Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, and Baljeet Malik—were taken into custody by the police in connection with this crime. Under interrogation, Malik is said to have disclosed the second accused person’s purported role in Vishwanathan’s death. Ajay Sethi and Ajay Kumar were later taken into custody in relation to the case.
An investigation into Soumya Vishwanathan’s death was initiated after forensic tests and reports verified that the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head. According to the police report, she was being followed, and it is most likely that a moving vehicle fired the fatal shot. Soumya’s activities in the area were captured on CCTV, and it showed a maroon car following hers. Teams from the criminal branch in Mumbai were called in immediately, and a thorough search was initiated to obtain more evidence. Subsequently, the police claimed to have located the pistol in Kapoor’s house that was used to kill Vishwanathan. At the time, reports also stated that Kapoor had shot Vishwanathan once to try to halt her car for a heist, but when she refused to stop, he had fatally shot her.
With the recent convictions, the horrific murder case that rocked the legal and journalistic communities together has some finality. Although the road to justice has been a long and difficult one, this decision is a big step in the right direction for the offenders’ accountability.
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