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Time of India
8 hours ago
- Time of India
2013 rape-murder case: Calcutta HC commutes convict's death penalty to life term with no remission for 50 years, cites mild mental disability
KOLKATA: Calcutta High Court on Tuesday commuted the death penalty of a 45-year-old man convicted of raping and murdering a two-and-a-half-year-old child in Kidderpore in 2013 — stating that the crime did not 'fall under the rarest-of-rare' category — and sentenced him to life in jail without remission for 50 years. The HC division bench of justices Debangsu Basak and Md Shabbar Rashidi also took into account the psychological evaluation report of the convict that said he suffered from 'mild mental disability'. In the intervening night of July 20 and 21, 2013, stable hand Suresh Paswan, then employed with Royal Calcutta Turf Club (RCTC), had abducted the toddler from a shanty under the Kidderpore ramp of Vidyasagar Setu where she lived with her grandmother, sexually assaulted her, strangled her to death and dumped the body in a drain near the northern gate of RCTC. The body was discovered by a couple of slum kids on the morning of July 21. After the child's death, her mother, who suffered from psychiatric illnesses, also went missing. Paswan, who then lived in a shed that housed Race Course stable hands, fled to his village in Bihar and was nabbed from there a day later. An autopsy report showed that the child's body bore 17 injuries, establishing that she was subjected to brutal sexual assault. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Cel mai popular echipament de sudură din zonă siginificant Află mai multe Undo She bled from the nostrils and ears and her death was due to manual strangulation, the report said. On March 28, 2019, a city sessions court sentenced Paswan, then 41, to death for the murder of the toddler and awarded him 20 years in jail for rape under Pocso. On Tuesday, the HC division bench of Justice Debangsu Basak and Justice Md Shabbar Rashidi upheld Paswan's conviction but did not find it a 'rarest of rare case' to justify death sentence. 'The appellant is aged 45 years and comes from a very poor economic background. He was married, but his wife left the appellant. He used to reside alone in the horse stable. The circumstances of the case do not suggest that the offence committed was pre-planned or was an outcome of any rivalry or enmity with the family of the victim. As the Supreme Court held in many cases, every murder is gruesome but does not justify the death penalty. In any case, we are not in a position to return a finding that the offence involved in the case at hand falls under the category of 'rarest of rare cases' to justify the punishment of death,' the HC held. Paswan's psychological evaluation report suggested his current intellectual functioning fell under the category of mild mental disability, which could be attributed to his lack of education. A socio-economic report showed Paswan was an only child. His father died before his birth and he was brought up by his mother, who worked as an agricultural labourer. 'His life has been reeling under poverty,' the HC observed. 'It is trite law that imposition of the death penalty should be resorted to if the circumstances of the case and the evidence led therein leave an impression that the option of imposition of any other penalty stands foreclosed. The possibility of future reformation is also a relevant factor to be taken into consideration while awarding the death sentence to a convict,' the bench observed.
CBS News
a day ago
- Automotive
- CBS News
Officials say 71/91 Freeway interchange project in Corona will be completed this summer
After nearly two years of construction, the 71/91 Interchange Project will finally be completed this summer, according to the Riverside County Transportation Commission. The work began back in late-2023, with the goal of replacing what is currently a single-lane connector between the eastbound 91 Freeway and the 71 Freeway with a two-lane connector loop. Work will still continue in coming weeks though, with the next major phase coming this weekend. Starting on Friday at 9 p.m., all westbound lanes of the 91 Freeway connector will be closed until 6 a.m., while the next night the Green River ramp will be closed from Friday at 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. on Monday. The newly-constructed bridge between the eastbound 91 and northbound 71 will open at 6 a.m on Saturday morning, RCTC officials said. The project, which cost approximately $137 million, will allow the busy thoroughfare to accommodate more cars and realign for a new connector. It was funded in part by the California Road Repair & Accountability Act of 2017, which hiked gasoline taxes to pay for state infrastructure and other projects. Additional funding was provided by Measure A receipts, which is generated by a half-cent sales tax. The rest is provided by federal funding and other sources, officials said. More information on the project can be found on RCTC's website.
Yahoo
12-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
After reshaping higher education in Rochester, GRAUC is departing the scene
Feb. 12—ROCHESTER — It had a funny, not so melodic name, but no community organization has played a bigger role over the decades in invigorating and reshaping Rochester's higher education scene. The Greater Rochester Advocates for Universities and Colleges, commonly referred to as GRAUC, is now winding down its operations, after decades of lobbying and advocating for post-secondary education in the area. Catherine Davis, GRAUC's interim executive director, said the decision to end the organization was made after consulting with its educational partners. She said an official end date hasn't yet been settled on. "The partners were very clear that GRAUC has had an incredible impact on the higher education landscape," Davis said. "They also said, 'We feel like GRAUC has met its mission at this point, and it's OK to dissolve.'" In many ways, GRAUC was a victim of its own success. It captured many of the higher education white whales it pursued. "Amazing," is how Don Supalla, former Rochester Community and Technical College president and past GRAUC executive director, describes the organization's legacy. "We wouldn't have anything like we have today without GRAUC." Created in 1987 as an outgrowth of a community-based strategic planning process called Future Scan 2000, GRAUC leaves the scene with its fingerprints all over higher education. Its dream of a four-year university — a goal it pursued for decades — was accomplished two decades ago with the founding of the University of Minnesota Rochester. But it was always experimenting and rejiggering the higher education puzzle. In the 1990s, GRAUC midwifed the University Center Rochester, a concept of three branches — RCTC, Winona State and University of Minnesota — under one roof. What made Rochester unique was its willingness to invest tens of millions of local option sales tax dollars into higher education. Higher education is usually a state investment. But GRAUC broke the mold and pushed for local investments. It led to a building renaissance, including a sports fieldhouse, stadium, workforce center and greenhouse facility at RCTC as well as UMR's downtown campus. "Rochester stood unique among Minnesota in terms of providing city dollars," said John Wade, a past GRAUC chair and president of Rochester Area Economic Development, Inc (RAEDI). And those local dollars not only jump-started projects, but also pushed them up the list at the state Legislature. "Because we were bringing local dollars to the projects, we leapfrogged over some other projects on MnSCU (Minnesota State Colleges and Universities) list, simply because it's pretty hard to turn down matching dollars. And we had local dollars to bring to the projects," Supalla said. Through GRAUC's lobbying, Winona State University and private colleges such as Saint Mary's University also expanded their offerings. A rallying cry for many GRAUC advocates was that Rochester was the only city of 100,000 without a four-year university. And while the statement wasn't technically true, it underscored the sense of dissatisfaction that animated GRAUC's efforts. Recently, as a last hurrah, GRAUC unveiled a healthcare simulation and learning center in downtown Rochester to train future healthcare professionals. Rochester's efforts at bulking up its higher education offerings also benefited from an array of powerful state politicians in St. Paul at the time. Dave Bishop and Nancy Brataas and Sheila Kiscaden either chaired committees or were in position to steer bills favorable to Rochester's cause. "It was at a time when our political stars aligned and we really made hay with it," Supalla said.
