Acid attack: HC upholds man's conviction, but commutes death penalty

The Bombay High Court Wednesday upheld the conviction of a 25-year-old man in the 2013 Preeti Rathi acid attack case but commuted his death penalty to life imprisonment. A division bench of justices B P Dharmadhikari and P D Naik partly allowed the appeal filed by convict Ankur Panwar, challenging the death penalty awarded to him by a special court in 2015.

This was the first instance of the death penalty being awarded by a court in the country in a case of acid attack. "The conviction under IPC Sections 302 (murder) and 326 (b) (voluntarily causing grievous hurt by use of acid) are upheld. The death sentence is commuted to life imprisonment," the bench said.

Rathi, a 23-year-old nurse, who was to join the Navy hospital in Mumbai, died after an acid attack in May 2013 by her stalker Panwar. On May 2, 2013, as Rathi got off the train from Delhi at the Bandra Terminus here, Panwar threw acid on her face.

Rathi lost her vision and received major injuries. She spent a month in hospitals, and on June 1 that year, she died of multiple organ failure at Bombay Hospital here.

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