After Dec 16 verdict, 3 get death for rape, murder of Pune techie in 2009

A sessions court in Pune on Tuesday gave death sentence to the three accused in the 2009 kidnapping, rape and murder of software engineer Nayana Pujari guilty. The fourth was released as he turned approver.

The court pronounced the sentence after hearing the arguments for more than six hours.

According to the police, Pujari, 28, a software engineer with an IT company in Pune and a resident of Katraj, had called her husband Abhijit around 8pm on October 7 to tell him she had missed the company pick-up and she would reach home late.

When Pujari did not return home, her family members lodged a complaint. Her body was found near Rajgurunagar, 60km from Pune, on October 8.

The CCTV footage from the area showed four men - the taxi driver Yogesh Raut, the IT firm's security guard Raju Chaudhari, offered Pujari a lift in their car. The police found that Pujari



accepted the lift as the guard was in the car. The two others, Mahesh Thakur and Vishwas Kadam, got into the taxi later.

Eight days after the crime, the police arrested the men, who confessed to raping and murdering Pujari and using her debit card to withdraw Rs61,000 from three different ATMs.

As the guard, Chaudhari, later turned an approver in the case, he will not be sentenced. He was released on Monday.

Before killing Pujari, the accused withdrew Rs61,000 from three different ATMs, said police.

Crimes against women have been on the rise in Pune.

In March 2017, Rasila Raju OP, 25, an Infosys engineer, was found dead on the ninth floor of her office in phase II of Hinjewadi IT park near Pune. She was strangled using a computer cable. The police later arrested the security guard of the office - Bhaben Saikia - in connection with the murder.