Court convicts 4 for 2008 murder that rocked Delhi

A Delhi court on Wednesday convicted four people for killing journalist Soumya Vishwanathan 15 years ago, bringing the curtain down on a gruesome saga that sent shock waves through the Capital and cemented Delhi's unsavoury reputation as a city unsafe for women.

- Deepankar Malviya

A fifth person - Ajay Sethi was convicted for dishonestly receiving stolen property and conspiring to abet, aid or knowingly facilitate organised crime.

The 25-year-old television journalist was driving back home on September 30, 2008 in her car when she was shot dead on a desolate stretch on Nelson Mandela Marg near Vasant Kunj around 3.30am. The murder stoked outrage and protests across the Capital, which was struggling to grapple with a string of cases of crimes against women at the time.

Additional sessions judge (ASJ) Ravindra Kumar Pandey held four of the five accused Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Ajay Kumar and Baljeet Malik guilty of murdering Vishwanathan and convicted them under sections 302 (murder) and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and also section 3(1)(i) of the Maharashtra Control of Organized Crimes Act (MCOCA) as well. The maximum sentence they may face is a death penalty.

"The court is of the considered view that prosecution has duly proved beyond all reasonable doubt that accused Ravi Kapoor and his other associates, co-accused Amit Shukla, Ajay Kumar and Baljeet Malik had committed the murder of the deceased or victim Saumya Vishwanathan with the intention to rob her on September 30, 2008, in between 3.25am and 3.55am at Nelson Mandela Marg," the court said in a 261-page judgment.