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Delhi Court Sentences Chandrakant Jha, Who Left Victims' Remains Near Tihar Jail, to Death

Judge Kamini Lau called the killing of 19-year-old Upender rarest of rare. The Delhi High Court later replaced Jha's death sentences with life without remission.

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Chandrakant Jha, in a white kurta and a brown knit cap, escorted by a Delhi police officer

Chandrakant Jha left victims' remains near Delhi's Tihar Jail and dared police to catch him. On February 5, 2013, a Delhi court sentenced him to death for one of those killings.

Additional Sessions Judge Kamini Lau, at the court in Rohini, held that the murder of 19-year-old Upender fell in the "rarest of rare" category and ordered that Jha "be hanged by the neck till he is dead." She called Jha, 46, a menace to society who was beyond reform and fined him 20,000 rupees. The day before, he had been sentenced to life imprisonment until death in another murder case, and sentencing in a third case was due the next day. India Today reported that Jha had been involved in 14 criminal cases, including seven murders, and had been convicted in three murder cases.

Jha helped young men, usually migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, find petty jobs and kept them at his home in JJ Colony, Hyderpur, before killing them over small provocations, India Today reported. His first recorded killing was in 1998; he was held for more than three years and released in 2002 for lack of evidence. He was arrested after his final murder in 2007, and in two cases notes were found with remains outside Tihar Jail. In January 2016 the Delhi High Court upheld his convictions but replaced the death sentences with life imprisonment without remission.

India Today reported on February 5 that sentencing in Jha's third case was due the next day, while its February 19 report said the court had ordered the gallows for him in two cases "last week."

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