Serial killer Chandrakant Jha, who decapitated his victims after killing them and dumped their bodies outside Tihar Central Jail here to mock the police, was on Wednesday awarded the death penalty in a third murder case.
Additional Sessions Judge Kamini Lau awarded the death penalty to 46-year-old Jha, a native of Madhepura in Bihar, for the murder of Anil Mandal on October 20, 2006, saying he does not deserve any punishment less than death. “Seeing the gravity of the offence nothing less than death penalty can be given to him,” ASJ Ms. Lau said.
On Monday, the court had sentenced him to life in prison for the murder committed on May 18, 2007, and on Tuesday, Jha was awarded the death penalty for killing Upender whose body he dumped outside Tihar on April 25, 2007.
The court also took serious note of Jha’s allegation against the police that he committed the murders to protest against the police implicating him in several cases falsely. According to police records, a total of 14 FIRs, including seven murder cases, were lodged against Jha. The first three FIRs against Jha were registered in 1998 at Adarsh Nagar police station for house trespass and theft immediately after he came to live in Delhi.
Subsequently he was charged for murder, attempt to murder and under various sections of the Arms Act in three more cases in 1998 at Adarsh Nagar police station. After spending four years in judicial custody, Jha came out in 2002, after which two more FIRs were lodged against him in 2002 and 2003 under the Arms Act in Adarsh Nagar. Then six cases of murder were lodged against Jha from 2002 onwards of which he has been convicted for three.
“Assuming the claims made by the convict in his statement under Section 313 Cr.P.C. (statement of accused) to be correct, he has demonstrated as to how the police system operates in our country when as a poor man who had come to Delhi to make his living, he was made to pay up to the beat constable of the area and on his refusal, falsely implicated in the various cases. The convict has also cited various instances when, according to him, he had been unfairly treated, repeatedly harassed and falsely implicated. Perhaps it is on account of this that in his attempt to revolt against this system he feels that what he did was justified,” ASJ Ms. Lau said.
The Judge said: “It is time to think and ponder that if this kind of policing has created one Chanderkant Jha and that if our policing continues the way it does, many more are in the making. It is in fact a wake up call for the Government of the day to bring about the long awaited police reforms which not only makes our police an effective investigating agency but also more friendly and professional. The motto of the police ‘With You, For You, Always’ should not only be a mere publicity stunt but an effective reality.”
