Pune BPO employee rape case: President Mukherjee rejects mercy plea of duo convicted in 2007

Source:- financialexpress.com

President Pranab Mukherjee has rejected the mercy petition of Purushottam Borate and Pradeep Kokade convicted in the 2007 Jyotikumari murder and rape case. The two men are convicted of abducting, raping and murdering BPO employee Jyotikumari in Pune in 2007. As per a statement issued by the President’s Secretariat, the mercy plea was sent to the President on May 12 and the President rejected the plea on May 26. Sources have told the Indian Express that the duo had pleaded guilty as their parents were ageing. Borate and Kokade are currently lodged at the Yerwada Central Prison, according to the Indian Express.

The Home Ministry will now fix a date for the execution after formal communication. The communication would then be sent to the Prison Department, which will then write to the concerned court seeking a death warrant, which is also known as a black warrant. After the warrant is received the Superintendent of Police will fix the execution date, which will be between two to three weeks from the date on which the black warrant was issued, according to the Indian Express.

The duo had raped and killed Jyotikumari after picking her up from her office in Pune. The victim, who hailed from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh, was staying with her brother-in-law and sister in the city. The brother-in-law filed a missing complaint with the police after Jyotikumari did not return home.

Borate, a cab driver with the victim’s firm had picked her up after her shift from her office. The Supreme Court had, in May 2015, upheld the death sentence awarded to the duo by a sessions court in Pune in March 2012. The Bombay High Court had also rejected Borate and Kokade’s mercy petition in September 2012, as reported by the Indian Express.