It was Sept 30, 2008 – just another day for 25-year-old Soumya Vishwanathan, a news producer with Headlines Today in New Delhi.
She had stayed back late to help out with a breaking news event.
Her work done, she left the Jhandewalan office at 3.03am, and got into her car to drive home to Vasant Kunj. She didn’t know this drive would be her last, that a late-night robbery attempt would brutally cut her life short.
A Delhi court on Wednesday convicted five men in the 15-year-old murder case, reported NDTV.
Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Baljit Malik and Akshay Kumar were held guilty of murder. The fifth, Ajay Sethi, was held guilty of helping the others.
On her way back, Soumya overtook a car occupied by Kapoor, Shukla, Kumar and Malik, police officers who probed the case told news agency PTI.
The four convicts, police said, noticed that the woman driver who overtook them was alone. They sped up and started tailing her.
First, they tried to intercept Soumya’s car. She did not stop. Kapoor then fired at her with a country-made weapon. The bullet hit her in the head, killing her instantly.
The car crashed into a divider on Nelson Mandela Marg, close to her home, and came to a halt.
The killers fled the scene, an officer said, but returned later to check on the victim’s condition. When they saw police personnel, they ran away.
Around 3.45am, an employee of a nearby restaurant cycling home saw a woman in the car, with its headlights and engine on. He stopped a couple of vehicles and called the cops.
Ms Soumya was rushed to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences where she was declared dead.
During their investigation, police found that Soumya had called her father around 3.15am and told him that she was on her way.
The investigation in the case was conducted by police from Delhi South district, then under H.G.S. Dhaliwal, now a special commissioner of Delhi Police.
Speaking to the media after the verdict yesterday, the senior officer said it was a challenging case as there was no physical contact between the victim and the killers.
“Only one bullet was fired from a moving vehicle and it hit Soumya, killing her,” he said.
Police made a breakthrough in the Soumya murder case during their probe into the murder of another woman, Jigisha Ghosh, in 2009.
Ghosh was robbed and murdered on March 18, 2009. Kapoor was arrested in this connection. And during questioning, he said they had murdered another woman.
India Today news director Rahul Kanwal, who was Soumya’s colleague at the time, was in the court for the verdict.
“Soumya Vishwanathan was the brightest young producer I have had the privilege of working with. She was the flag-bearer of commitment and hard work in our newsroom,” he posted on X.
“Her gruesome murder on the way back home has haunted me for 15 years. I was filled with emotion and relief as I heard Judge Pandey pronounce all the accused guilty in a crowded Saket courtroom this afternoon. Nothing will bring Soumya back but at least the murderers will pay for their crime.”
Soumya’s parents Madhavi and M.K. Vishwanathan fought back tears.
Ms Madhavi said: “We lost our daughter, but this will act as a deterrent for others, otherwise they would have been emboldened. At least, one gang would be out.”
She said she wants the life sentence for the convicts.
Indo-Asian News Service
