"I have been acquitted," says Vishal (all names changed), standing in front of his single-storey, modest house in north Delhi's Rohini area. A few hundred metres away lives a family whose six-year-old daughter was brutally raped and cut to pieces by him. The family lives in constant terror because Vishal, earlier this year, allegedly threatened to do the same to their younger daughter.
A trial court had sentenced Vishal to death for the 2007 rape and murder. However, the high court held him to be a juvenile at the time of the crime. Since he had already spent five years in prison, Vishal walked free.
Now, Delhi Police says it plans to cite Vishal's case before the Supreme Court to push for reforms in the Juvenile Justice Act (JJ Act). Last amended more than a decade ago, the JJ Act makes no distinction on the nature of crime for those under 18 and allows for a maximum of three-year term in a reform home.
Vishal was spared death despite conviction thanks to the act, though he had brutally raped and murdered his minor victim in the neighborhood, chopped her body and threw the parts in two public toilets. A trial court handed him the death holding his age to be 20 years. But, relying on a bone ossification test — which put his age between 17-20 years at the time of the crime — and statements by his sisters, Delhi high court declared him a "juvenile in conflict with law".
It's a decision whose repercussions are still playing out in the area, because Vishal was released from prison after the HC verdict.
Family can't believe law let the killer roam free
When TOI visited the dirty, crowded neighbourhood, Vishal's demeanor varied from calmness to suspicion. He suddenly turned hostile and stopped talking during the short late-morning interaction. Living just a stone's throw away from his house, the family of the victim expressed shock that their daughter's killer is free even though he had been awarded the death penalty. Worse, he is back in their neighborhood.
The terrorized family had complained to the local police in January this year, which lodged a case of criminal intimidation and criminal trespass against Vishal. However, he was released soon after on bail. Since then, locals say, the victim's parents remain tense over the safety of their younger daughter.
When TOI visited their house, it learned just how fragile their existence was. Nagender, the girl's father, is battling acute TB in a government hospital and his wife, Kaveri, spends most of her time tending to him. A relative, Manoj, takes care of the minor girl when she is home. But, he too has to often step out for long periods for work.
"Our family just can't digest the fact that the killer is living right in our midst and the police and judiciary can't do anything about it," says Manoj, pointing to the direction of Vishal's house.
At Vishal's house, another layer of reality emerges. "Baree ho kar aaye hain (I've come out after being acquitted)" he says, when asked about his jail term. His elder sister and brother-in-law agree, oblivious of the legal nuances that granted him freedom. "My wife loves her brother madly. She sold off a nearby plot to fund the lawyer's fee while fighting the case in court," says Arun, who does odd painting jobs for a living.
When TOI asked Arun why Vishal and his sister were getting ready to leave for Haridwar, he opened up a little. "Ever since he returned from jail, Vishal behaves weirdly. He is always scared he will be taken back to prison. Recently, he disappeared for months and we had to file a missing report with the cops.
"We learnt that he had injured himself while he was with kawarias in Haridwar. So we lodged a missing report in Haridwar too after searching for him. We found him in a disheveled state and brought him home. But Haridwar Police wants to verify his identity before they close the case," Arun explained.
Both husband and wife insists Vishal suffers from mental illness and is on medication. He even tried to commit suicide, they say. His sister, between sobs, kept stressing that he was innocent.
They remain unaware that a special leave petition is being prepared at the highest levels of the Delhi Police. Sources say the SLP will not only challenge the Delhi high court's decision favoring Vishal in November last year, it is also expected to urge the apex court to settle questions of law.
The SLP stems from the stand taken earlier this year by the prosecutor in the Richa Kapoor case. She argued that the appeal must urge the apex court to clarify if in heinous crimes, courts can also weigh the conduct of a juvenile accused and brutality of the crime, and not just go by medical evidence "which is not conclusive and varies according to region, diet, race etc and hence isn't conclusive proof."
Relying on the prosecutor's note, the SLP is likely to argue that Vishal is certainly no innocent minor lawbreaker. "To conclusively hold that ... the accused had not attained the age of discretion so as to understand the consequences of his heinous act, is not free from ambiguity or doubt," the note said.
Times View
This case should give food for thought to those who think the age of juveniles should be fixed irrespective of the nature of the crime. Clearly some of those who are chronologically "juvenile" may not be so in other ways. In the urge to ensure that the young are treated humanely, we must not lose sight of the fact that the rights of their potential victims cannot be ignored. That is why many countries do not make the distinction between adult and juvenile absolute. They adjust it to the nature and seriousness of the crime. We once again urge our lawmakers to recognize that this is an urgent need in India too.
Not only current ministers but also the future ministers won't let it happen.