Bulletin India. Ranchi.
The Jharkhand High Court has rejected the bail plea of Rahul Raj, who is currently in jail for the rape and murder of a B.Tech student, and has upheld his death sentence. On Monday, the court dismissed his appeal petition. Rahul Raj had been sentenced to death by the Special CBI Court in Ranchi, a decision he had challenged in the High Court. The division bench of Justices Anand Sen and Gautam Kumar Chaudhary heard the case.
Rahul Raj was convicted by the Ranchi Special CBI Court on December 20, 2019, and sentenced to death the following day, December 21. The crime dates back to December 15, 2016, when the victim returned home from college in the evening. Rahul Raj had been stalking her throughout the day. In the early hours of December 16, around 4 AM, he broke into her house by opening the grill lock. The victim had not locked her room from the inside. Rahul strangled her and then raped her. After she became unconscious, he strangled her with an iron wire.
Following the assault, Rahul undressed the victim and dumped her body in an adjacent room, where he set it on fire after pouring motor oil on it. He then fled the scene. The police, during their investigation, traced Rahul using mobile call dumps from the Booty Basti area. Around 300 people were interrogated during the investigation, which revealed that Rahul was originally from Nalanda and was also involved in a minor’s rape case in Patna. At the time, he was in jail in Lucknow.
The crucial breakthrough in the case came through DNA testing. Samples from the victim’s swab and nails were tested, and they matched the DNA of Rahul’s mother. This evidence formed the basis for his conviction and death sentence.
