Roy has been sentenced to life imprisonment under Sections 364 (kidnapping and abducting with the intent to commit murder), 364(a) (kidnapping for ransom) and 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). In addition, he has been sentenced to seven years' rigorous imprisonment under Sections 363 (kidnapping) and 387 (extortion) of the IPC. Both sentences run contiguously. Roy has already served five years in jail. He has also been fined Rs 5,000.

After three years of trying to extort money from the Rathi family, who reside at Andheri (W), Roy, aged 21 then, abducted Amit from his tuition class on March7, 1994, took him to the Mira Road creek and then smashed his head in. He was arrested three days later by the D N Nagar police. Amit was then a Std VIII student of Manekji Cooper School at Juhu.

According to the prosecution case, Roy used to reside in the building opposite Amit Rathi, son of industrialist Vimalkumar Rathi, at Lallubhai Park, Andheri (W). At the time, Roy was in love with Ritu Bharatiya but neither family approved of the relationship as the accused was not financially sound. Deciding to amass wealth to bolster his financial status, Roy decided to extort money from the Rathis.

From the window of his flat, Roy kept a watch on the family and decided to kidnap Amit for ransom. On January 20, 1994, Vimal Rathi received the first threatening call at his office from Roy, who demanded Rs 5 lakh. He said he would kidnap his daughter, also named Ritu who was a student of Mithibai College, if he failed to pay up.

Rathi lodged a complaint with the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited and was alsoprovided provided police protection, which was later withdrawn. Sensing danger to his son's life, Rathi also asked a family friend, Ashok Ganguly, to accompany his son wherever he went. After the police protection was withdrawn, Roy sprung back into action and studied Amit's every move. He also traced the boy to his tuition class at Amitnagar in Yari Road.

On March 7, 1994, Amit proceeded to his tuition class as usual along with his classmates Akshay Shetty, Ashok Ganguly and his driver. Ganguly dropped Amit and Akshay to the gate and returned to the car. While the boys climbed to the second floor, they were accosted by Roy, who was waiting on the staircase, wearing a monkey cap. Roy took both boys to the terrace, abducted Amit after warning Akshay not to breathe a word.

After the class was dismissed, Ganguly found Akshay emerge alone. Inquires with the tuition teacher revealed that Amit had not attended class that day. Akshay then disclosed that Amit had been kidnapped and a complaint was lodged with theD N Nagar police.

After kidnapping Amit, Roy took the boy to the creek at Mira Road (W) and smashed his head with a stone. Then he scattered Amit's belongings, clothes, shoes and books, across a distance of 22 km to throw investigators off the trail.

On returning home, Roy resumed his threatening calls to the Rathi household and demanded Rs 5 crore once more. Police then tapped the telephone calls and concluded that they were being made from a booth in the vicinity. On MArch 10, Roy was caught red-handed and arrested. He finally confessed to murdering Amit.

The case, which was based on circumstantial evidence, took three years to come to trial. When the case came up for today, Judge Thipsay found Roy guilty of all charges. Then he asked Roy what quantum of sentence he thought he should receive. Roy told the court it was up to his advocate to reply.

His advocate, Jacob Thomas said since the court has held his client guilty, there was no option but to award capital punishment. Special Public ProsecutorSudarshan Raju also told the court that the case fell into the category of ``rarest of the rare'' and after citing recent Supreme Court judgements added that the accused deserves the death penalty. The court however felt it was not inclined to award the death penalty and awarded him a life term instead.

The case was investigated by Senior Police Inspector J G Jadhav, Sub-Inspectors Sohail Buddha and Bhushan Belnekar, Constables, Narayan Desai and G K Bansode attached to the D N Nagar police station.

`I had hoped for the death penalty'

Vimal Rathi had probably cried every night since March 7, 1994, when his 13-year-old son Amit was killed for a ransom of Rs 5 crore. But this evening, when he cried outside the Sessions Court, there was some solace in his heart. Additional Sessions Judge, A M Thipsay, had just pronounced the judgement Rathi had been waiting for, for over two years.

Rathi sat on a broken wooden chair outside the judge's chamber every day since August 23, the day the judgement wasfirst scheduled to be delivered. But time has taken its toll on Vimal Rathi, a businessman by profession. The presence of the accused a few feet away in Courtroom No 7 did not help at all. However, the saffron tilak on his forehead spoke of his belief in God. Still, he is disappointed that the death penalty had not been awarded.

``I expected him (Roy) to get the death penalty. I am disappointed. But no matter what punishment he gets, I shall never get my son back,'' he said in a choked voice. ``Look at what that engineering student has done to that Saki Naka boy. Such people should be punished in a way that there is some deterrent to such behaviour,'' he had said earlier.

Rathi will never know why Roy had killed his when he (Vimal) had begun to raise the ransom money. In fact, part of the amount had even been readied. Asked how he felt now that the verdict had been pronounced, Special Public Prosecutor Sudarshan Raju said he was very involved even at a when ``prosecutors are a breed which don't have thetime to become sensitive about cases''.