Himalayan News Service

Kolkata, July 4:

The fear of capital punishment has made a rapist admit his crime and return the victim, whom he had kidnapped, to her family in West Bengal. The man surrendered to police yesterday, asking he should not be given the capital punishment because he was admitting to his crime and had even returned his 12-year-old victim to her parents. The rapist said he became scared after reading about the impending hanging of Dhananjoy Chatterjee, who had raped and murdered a teenager in Kolkata in 1990.

Police said Noor Mohammed surrendered in Mathabari village from where he had kidnapped the girl and run away to Panipath. Mohammed told police he had "only raped her a few times" but never considered killing her. "I don’t want to hang. So, I decided to surrender. I didn’t intend to kill or sell her.” Mohammed said he was upset after reading about the impending hanging of Chatterjee, who was to be hanged June 25. The execution was stayed because the president wanted to consider a second clemency plea from Chatterjee’s family.

Mohammed told police he did not want to face the fate of Chatterjee. "I saw on television that Chatterjee would be hanged. I didn’t want to be another Dhananjoy, so I decided to return and surrender." On June 25, Mohammed, a tailor, kidnapped the girl when she came to his home to do some stitching. The next day he fled with her to Haryana, where he repeatedly raped her.