The rape of the 23 year old woman who was traveling from Kochi (place of work) to her hometown in Shoranur (Kerala), in a vacant ladies compartment can be mildly termed shocking and grabbed immense media attention. The accused, a disabled man, Govindaswamy hails from Tamil Nadu, was pronounced death sentence, by the fast track court in Trichur (Kerala).

Marking a closure in the much-anticipated case, the sentence for the accused was welcomed by one and all in Kerala as an ideal punishment for the gruesome crime that stunned the state and the country as a whole. Govindachamy had however pleaded in court that he would not repeat the crime and that he should be awarded a milder sentence. The same was rejected by the court considering the gravity of the crime. The verdict comes a good nine months after the incident.

In the incident that took place in February, Govindaswamy allegedly tried to rob Soumya in the train and when she tried to resist, he flung her out of the moving train. She suffered fatal injuries as a result especially on her head after hitting her head in the railway tracks. She was later raped by the same person in the tracks and left in the sorry state for hours before the police found her.