Ranchi: Jharkhand High Court has upheld the death sentence of Rahul Raj alias Rocky Raj alias Ankit alias Raj Srivastava alias Aryan, convicted by CBI court in the much talked about case of raping and killing a B.Tech student in Ranchi and burning her body in house.
Convicted Rahul had filed an appeal to cancel the sentence of the lower court, on which the High Court gave its verdict on Monday. This incident of Ranchi was discussed all over the country. This incident took place on 15-16 December 2016. The 19-year-old B.Tech student of Ranchi’s RTC Institute lived with her sister in Booti Basti. Her parents also used to come to stay sometimes. On 15 December 2016, the student was alone in the house. She returned from college at 6 pm. Rahul had followed her throughout the day. The student was not even aware of this.
Rahul entered her house at around 4 am on 16 December. Rahul raped her and when the student became unconscious, he strangled her with a wire. After this, he poured oil on the student’s body and set it on fire. He also threw the student’s clothes in another room and set them on fire. After committing the crime, he closed the door and ran away.
After this incident, public anger erupted in Ranchi and protests took place for several days. Later, the investigation of the case was handed over to the CBI. The agency had questioned about 300 people. Later, Rahul was traced on the basis of mobile call dump.
Rahul is a resident of Ghurgaon in Ekangarasrai police station area of Nalanda. During investigation, it was found that he is a habitual criminal. He was living in Booti Basti. He already had rape cases registered against him in Patna and Lucknow. When the CBI reached Rahul’s village in search of him, it was found that he was lodged in Lucknow jail in a rape case. The agency took a sample of Rahul’s mother’s blood and got it tested for DNA. The DNA matched with the swab and inner part of the nail taken from the body of the deceased. Later, Rahul was brought to Ranchi from Lucknow jail on a production warrant and questioned.
Later, the CBI filed a chargesheet against him. The CBI court in Ranchi convicted him on 20 December 2019 and put the case in the category of rarest of rare and sentenced him to death on 21 December 2019.
