Conviction brings hope to kin of slain journalist Soumya

NEW DELHI: The conviction of three men in the murder of IT executive Jigisha Ghosh has brought justice to one family and raised the hopes of another — that of slain

NEW DELHI: The conviction of three men in the murder of IT executive Jigisha Ghosh has brought justice to one family and raised the hopes of another — that of slain journalist Soumya Vishwanathan.

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In September 2008, six months before Ghosh was shot dead, TV journalist Vishwanathan was murdered. She was 25. The accused in both cases are the same.

“The judgment in Jigisha’s case gives us hope. It is a very fair judgment and we are happy. We are hoping something happens soon in Soumya’s case as well,” said Vishwanathan’s mother Madhavi Vishwanathan.

It took six months for Delhi Police to catch the accused in Vishwanathan’s murder. That too was by chance as Ghosh’s killers also confessed to the former murder.

The trio allegedly also robbed and killed a taxi driver Mohd Nadeem.

Vishwanathan was shot dead near Vasant Kunj while she was driving home from work at 3am. In January 2009, Nadeem was killed in Vasant Kunj. Two months later, Ghosh was abducted and killed in nearby Vasant Vihar.

“We did not have a public prosecutor for a long time. Then there were several other delays from the side of the accused. Right now, the examination of witnesses is still under process. While the killers have confessed to their role in Soumya’s murder, the evidence is circumstantial,” said Madhavi Vishwanathan.

Vishwanathan’s parents had demanded that the case be fast tracked. But in 2014, the prosecutor in the case Rajiv Mohan left the case. For 10 months, there was no prosecutor in the case.

The Delhi government finally appointed Mohan as the special prosecutor in the case in August last year.

The case brought women’s safety in the city into the spotlight in 2008-09.

The then Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit had waded into controversy in the case when she said that women should not be “adventurous” and should not travel alone at night.