New Delhi: Journalist Soumya Vishwanathan's father MK Vishwanathan passed away on Saturday. On November 25, four people convicted in Soumya's murder case were sentenced to life imprisonment by a Delhi court. This father had fought a long legal battle to get justice for his daughter. The 82-year-old MK Vishwanathan died just two weeks after the court verdict. The father died just a day after the daughter's 41st birthday.
Just two weeks ago, Delhi's Saket Court had sentenced four accused in the Soumya Vishwanathan murder case to life imprisonment. In 2008, Soumya was murdered while returning home from office. In this case, the accused were punished after 15 years. Soumya's father MK Vishwanathan died at the age of 82.
Soumya was shot dead on September 30, 2008, when she was returning home in her car after office late at night. The police had claimed that the motive for this murder was robbery. The police had arrested five accused in this case. All the accused have been in police custody since 2009. It may be noted that these accused have been convicted in the murder case of IT professional Jigisha Ghosh in 2009. The police got the clue in the Soumya case only after the murder of IT professional Jigisha Ghosh.
During the court's conclusive decision, Soumya's father was in the ICU, and her mother, Madhavi Vishwanathan, expressed dissatisfaction with the verdict, citing the court's refusal to impose the death penalty. "I wanted this. What I am suffering, I want them to suffer for life. I am satisfied, but I will not say that I am happy. My husband is in ICU. He had a bypass surgery," Soumya’s mother had told news agency PTI.
