Ranchi: The Jharkhand High Court on Monday upheld the death sentence for Rahul Raj, also known as Rocky Raj, in the savage 2016 case of rape and murder of a B. Tech student in Ranchi.
Raj was initially sentenced to death by the CBI court for the horrific crime of rape, strangulation, and burning of the victim’s body.
The state government had filed an appeal to confirm the death sentence, while Raj, the convict, sought to overturn the lower court’s verdict.
How the incident unfolded
The incident that came to be known as the ‘Nirbhaya case of Ranchi’ occurred on the fateful night of December 15-16, 2016. The 19-year-old B. Tech student from RTC Institute was living with her sister in Booti Basti in Ranchi. On December 15, she returned home from college at around 6 p.m. and was alone in the house.
Rahul Raj, who had been stalking her throughout the day, managed to break into her home around 4 a.m. on December 16. He raped and then strangled her with a wire. When she lost consciousness, he removed her clothes, doused the hapless girl in kerosene, and set her ablaze. Before fleeing the scene, he also set her clothes on fire in another room.
The brutal nature of the crime sparked widespread outrage and protests in Ranchi. The investigation was later transferred to the CBI, which interviewed approximately 300 people and traced Raj through mobile call records.
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Raj, a resident of Nalanda, was identified as a repeat offender with previous rape cases in Patna and Lucknow lodged against him. The CBI discovered that he was in a Lucknow jail in another rape case. A DNA test confirmed his involvement, matching samples from his mother with evidence from the crime scene.
Raj was transported to Ranchi from Lucknow under a production warrant and subsequently charged by the CBI. On December 20, 2019, the CBI court convicted him, classifying the case as one of the “rarest of rare” and sentencing him to death the following day.
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–IANS
