A death row inmate, Jitendra Babulal Shinde (32), who had been convicted in a harrowing 2016 case of rape and murder involving a minor girl in Kopardi, Maharashtra, was discovered deceased in his cell at Yerwada Central Jail in Pune, according to the police.
Preliminary indications strongly suggest suicide as the cause of death. It’s worth noting that Shinde had been receiving psychiatric treatment during his incarceration. The man is believed to have employed strips of a towel to hang himself from an iron bar located above the door of his cell, as reported by a police official.
The distressing discovery was made by a vigilant prison guard who promptly informed his colleagues upon finding Shinde hanging in his cell. Subsequently, the inmate was subjected to a medical examination, during which he was officially pronounced dead, according to an official from Yerwada police station.
In 2017, a sessions court in Ahmednagar district had handed down the death penalty to three individuals, including Shinde, for their involvement in the heinous rape and murder of a 15-year-old girl in Kopardi village back in 2016. The victim, a member of the Maratha community, had been brutally raped and subsequently murdered on July 13, 2016, in Kopardi village. The perpetrators had inflicted grievous injuries on her body, including breaking her limbs, before strangling her, as confirmed by law enforcement at the time.