Death penalty for acid attacker

Judges found 26-year-old Ankur Panwar guilty of throwing sulfuric acid on 24-year-old Preeti Rathi outside a railway station in Mumbai in 2013. The woman suffered severe damage to her lungs, vocal chords and eyes and died 30 days after the incident.

"The court has awarded the death penalty to Ankur Panwar," public prosecutor Ujwal Nikam told reporters. "I convinced the court that the acid attack belonged to the rarest of the rare cases."

Indian laws say a convict can be sentenced to death only in cases of severe brutality. The victim's father, Amar Singh Rathi, expressed satisfaction with the verdict. "It took three years for us to get justice, but I am happy that it has been finally delivered," he said on Thursday.

India's official broadcaster tweeted a picture of the victim.

Panwar's lawyers said they would appeal the verdict.

"We are moving the case to the high court. There is no second thought about it," Panwar's defense attorney Apeksha Vora said. She had earlier pleaded for leniency arguing that her client was his family's only breadwinner.

Preeti Rathi was her murderer Panwar's neighbor in New Delhi and arrived in Mumbai in May 2013 to begin her new job as a nurse in the Indian Navy. Prosecutors said Panwar followed Preeti Rathi on a train from the Indian capital and attacked her with acid as she got off in Mumbai. They said that the man had committed the crime after she rejected his marriage proposal and wanted to destroy her career by disfiguring her face.

According to the Acid Survivors Foundation India, an organization helping attack victims, around 100 to 500 cases of acid violence happen every year. Acid violence cases began to be separately recorded beginning 2013, after an amendment to the Indian Penal Code. Nearly 350 attacks were reported in 2014.

mg/sms (AP, AFP)