Delhi court gives death penalty to serial killer

A 46-year-old serial killer was on Tuesday sentenced to death by a Delhi court for murder and dumping the body near Tihar Jail after beheading and chopping off body parts of the victim as he is a ‘menace;’ to the society and his case fell in the ‘rarest of rare’ category.

A day after sentencing him to prison term for entire life in one of three murder cases against him, Additional Sessions Judge Kamini Lau handed down capital punishment to Chandrakant Jha, a native of Madhepura in Bihar, saying the case fulfils all the criteria in the rarest of rare category as his act was shocking to the community.

"He has committed cold-blooded murder in a most diabolic manner. He is a menace to the society. He had challenged the system and to do so he committed murders of innocent victims," the judge said while pronouncing the punishment.

Jha was on Tuesday sentenced to death in the second of the three murder cases in which he has been convicted. On Monday, the same court had sentenced him to life imprisonment till his death in another case of murder, in which also he had chopped off the head and limbs of the victim and had dumped the body near Tihar Jail in New Delhi.

Jha, who had appeared calm yesterday, looked nervous as the court awarded the maximum punishment for his crime. While pronouncing the sentence, the court said, "After committing the crime, Jha talked of repeating it again and again by challenging the police that he would keep on sending such special gifts (bodies) to it after every 15 days."

In this case, Jha had murdered one Upender in 2007 and had dumped his body outside the jail after chopping off the head and limbs. The other two murder cases are also similar in which he had killed one Anil in 2006 and another person whom Jha referred to as Dalip in 2007.

The sentencing in the remaining murder case against him will be pronounced on Wednesday. The court had convicted Jha for killing the three by relying on circumstantial and forensic evidence, including the views of the handwriting experts establishing the fact that the letters recovered near the bodies were written by him.

Jha was arrested in 1998 in connection with a murder case but was acquitted for want of evidence. In December 2007, a Delhi court had acquitted him after the police had failed to file chargesheet against him in another murder case.

According to the prosecution, after committing the murders, Jha had even challenged the police by writing several letters to it to nab him.

Jha was involved in atleast six murder cases, the prosecution had said. The Delhi police had filed separate charge sheets in three of the cases.

The police had said Jha had invited his victims to stay with him and took good care of them. After some time, he would get annoyed with them easily and took offence to their activities, it had said.

According to the police, Jha used to tie the hands and feet of the victims before strangulating them. Jha was caught by the police on May 20, 2007 near Mianwali Nagar here and during interrogation, he had disclosed having killed several people and beheading the bodies and also of throwing their other body parts in various places in New Delhi, the court had noted in Monday’s order.

It had also noted that Jha himself had informed the police about the bodies lying in front of Tihar jail.