Thiruvananthapuram: When the Thiruvananthapuram Principal Sessions Court Judge B Sudheendra Kumar awarded death to rapist Rajesh Kumar in January 2013, it was hailed as the fastest adjudicated rape-murder case in the country.
The verdict hogged national attention as it was delivered a year after the gang rape and murder of Nirbhaya in Delhi in December 2012.
Rajesh had raped and murdered a Class 10 student in Vattappara in Thiruvananthapuram on March 6, 2012. While awarding the death sentence, the court had observed that Rajesh didn’t deserve any sympathy.
Rajesh is on the run now after he escaped from the Open Prison at Nettukaltheri in Thiruvananthapuram, along with another murder convict Sreenivasan at 5pm on Wednesday.
Authorities noticed the jailbreak around 8pm.
A case has been registered against the duo at Neyyardam police station. The police have issued look out notices and a massive hunt is on to trace them.
Spread across 400 acres, the open jail has a main block near the Neyyar dam and an annex near Kottoor. The main block can accommodate 435 persons while the annexe has a capacity to accommodate 15 prisoners.
Inmates at the open jail rear cattle, tap rubber and work in farms for a daily wage of Rs 210.
Rajesh and Srinivasan were shifted from Central prison in Poojappura to Nettukaltheri around eight months ago. At the prison, both tapped rubber at the prison-owned plantation.
The decision to move murder convicts to an open jail that does not have walls and CCTVs has raised several questions.
The 2012 rape and murder
Rajesh, who rode auto rickshaw for a living, had raped and murdered the Class 10 student on March 6, 2012.
His vehicle met with an accident near the victim's house. Upon realising that the girl was alone at the house, Rajesh raped the girl and strangled her to death. He took away her gold ornaments worth 1.5 sovereigns and pawned it at a finance firm. Police nabbed him a week after the incident.
The Kerala High Court had commuted Rajesh's death sentence to 25-year life term without parole a few years ago.
Srinivasan, who hails from Tamil Nadu, was convicted for the murder of his friend’s wife in Palakkad.
