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By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 8:56:24 pm

Man gets death for minor’s rape, murder

Mumbai | Nashik: A Nashik Special Fast Track Court has awarded the death sentence to a 25-year old man who was convicted last week for luring a 4-year-old girl with a chocolate, kidnapping, raping and murdering her, here on Friday. Terming the case as the ‘rarest of rare’ crimes, the Special Judge K. D. Paldewar – who had found Vijay Sanjay Khairnar guilty of kidnap, sexual assault and murdering the child on Sep. 30 but reserved the verdict after the final arguments on Oct. 7 – pronounced the...

Man gets death for minor’s rape, murder

Mumbai | Nashik: A Nashik Special Fast Track Court has awarded the death sentence to a 25-year old man who was convicted last week for luring a 4-year-old girl with a chocolate, kidnapping, raping and murdering her, here on Friday. Terming the case as the ‘rarest of rare’ crimes, the Special Judge K. D. Paldewar – who had found Vijay Sanjay Khairnar guilty of kidnap, sexual assault and murdering the child on Sep. 30 but reserved the verdict after the final arguments on Oct. 7 – pronounced the capital punishment today. He also slapped a fine of Rs 10 lakhs as compensation to the victim’s family, hailing from Dongrale village before a packed courtroom where the villagers, the victim’s family and others were present. Emerging from the courtroom after the verdict, Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam told the media that “the Court had considered the gravity of the crime and the circumstantial evidence establishing Khairnar’s involvement” while deciding the sentence. The Court did not take into account the convict’s poverty – he was a daily wager – or illiteracy as grounds for leniency, added the ace criminal lawyer. It was on Nov. 16, 2025 in Dongrale village of Malegaon taluka when Khairnar lured the little girl on the promise of giving her a chocolate and took her to a desolate spot to carry out his devious plans. Betraying the trust of the child who used to call him ‘dada’ (elder brother) due to their acquaintance, Khairnar sexually assaulted her, killed her and abandoned her before decamping from there. A few hours later, the child’s body was found dumped in a nullah and the police were summoned. As details of the gruesome crime tumbled out and spread, it ignited widespread public outrage all over the state. The police swung into action, formed several probe teams and managed to track down Khairnar from his hideout within a few hours. Considering the sensitivity of the crime, the strong emotions plus the mass furore it created, the state government assigned the case to a fast-track court, assigned Nikam as the SPP and the matter was heard speedily. The SPP aggressively led the prosecution, arguing in the court that in view of the gravity of the crime, the circumstances leading to it and other aspects, it warranted the severest punishment – death – for Khairnar, irrespective of his age or financial status. The Dongrale villagers stood in solidarity with the victim’s family and they raised a chorus for quick investigations, an expeditious trial and slapping the death penalty on the convict to serve as a strong deterrent to potential offenders. As per the Indian law, the trial court’s verdict will now go to the Bombay High Court for confirmation. Political leaders from different parties hailed the court verdict and said “justice has finally been done to the victim’s family”.

The Battle Behind Ram

Writer: Shoma A. Chatterji
Shoma A. Chatterji
5 days ago
3 min read

Did Ram or the epic Ramayana really exist? Or is it a fictional creation reportedly authored by Rishi Valmiki? In fact, there is no scientific or historical truth in the existence of Rishi Valmiki himself. Evolution has taken such long steps in our lives, that any question raised about the authenticity of the very existence of Ramayana has become redundant as we have accepted the Ramayana to be the ideal, indisputable truth unfolded through the eternal battle between fact and fiction, between the real and the imaginary and between the good and the evil.

 

Aniruddha Sarkar has directed, given the music and done the complete play named Ram Ki Ladai under the Rangabhoomi banner. He is the recipient of the Sangeet Natak Akademi’s Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar 2024. His directorial production Chandaa Bedni received national recognition at the Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards (META), winning four awards.

 

The play opens with preparations afoot on a play-within-the-play named Ram Ki Ladai  to be staged somewhere in the Hindi belt. Ramgoolam, an ordinary young man, is chosen to play the role of Ram which angers most of the other members of the cast because Ramgoolam belongs to a low caste so these others feel how a low caste, ordinary guy can or should play Ram. The play is authored by Lakshmi Narayan Lal and was first staged way back in 1978. It is a musical spilling over with dehati songs, beautiful dances and acting all of which are so staggeringly satiric that it invests this musical with a soul and spirit of its own.

 

Aniruddha Sarkar has trained the twenty actors present on the proscenium for two hours for around 60 to 65 days. The languages and dialects used in the dialogue are in Hindi, Awadhi and Braj some of which are a bit tough for the city-bred audience to follow but this is more than compensated by the action, the songs and the story the play narrates.

 

The plot of the play-within-the-play remains confined to the performance of Ram’s Dhanurbhanga which marks the momentous event where Lord Rama wins the hand of Goddess Sita in marriage during her Swayamvara (a ceremony to choose a husband) organized by her father, King Janaka of Mithila. The gigantic bow and arrow define a major character in the play-within-the-play though Ramgoolam is quite nervous of facing the wrath of the upper-caste members of the cast. But Sita’s father soothes his fears by repeating that he will give his daughter’s hand only to the one who can lift the very heavy bow and hit the target. The very heavy bow-and-arrow is also an irony pointing a sarcastic finger at the caste and “Aryan blood” question.

 

The play is a metaphorical entity in which Ram is a metaphor for goodness, honesty and positive values. This is actually given as lines to a character who says, “Anyone can be Ram”, a telling comment on the wrong and artificial ‘marriage’ of religion and politics in the current Indian environment we are living in. Ram, in other words, is brought out of his mythological reality to step into the real world and demonstrate his honesty, his courage and his determination not necessarily with a caste-tag or a royal birth attached. This is the underlying and overlying statement of the play.


Through soul-stirring music, humour, sharp satire, moving emotion, and striking symbolism, the play exposes the contradictions, inequalities, and moral dilemmas that surround us every day. It asks a compelling question - Can the ideals of Ram survive in the world we live in today? The dialogues are filled with biting satire and pungent lines.


Sita is somewhat marginalized in the play as her role in limited to choosing to marry only that man who is able to strike the arrow to the given target and is strongly backed by her father in this choice. But we see her decked up like a bride, coy and shy and already in love with Ram. The play closes with Ram achieving the impossible and winning Sita’s hand.


The many songs and the beautiful dances sometimes, within the rehearsal itself, make Ram Ki Ladai an experience to take home with you and remain haunted by it long after the play is over. The dance numbers, choreographed by Rudra Prasad Roy are an ideal blend of rhythm, symmetry, orchestration and performance.


(The writer is a noted film scholar and theater critic.)

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