The two young women were cousins, practically sisters, who had grown up together. They lived with their families in adjacent quarters. The crime scene was a bloodbath. The immediate assumption was a botched robbery or perhaps a psychopathic serial killer on the loose. But the police soon realized that nothing had been stolen. The doors showed no signs of forced entry. The killer had been invited in.
The legal process, however, lumbered on. The Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) took cognizance of the case. The boy was sent to a juvenile detention center. The victims’ families, led by Ujjwal Kumbhe (Anuja’s father) and Sharad Kulkarni (Neha’s father), launched a tireless legal battle. They argued that the crime was so heinous, so premeditated, that the accused had the mental capacity of an adult and should be tried under the Indian Penal Code, not the lenient Juvenile Act.
This case, along with the infamous 2012 Delhi gang rape case (where one of the accused was a juvenile who served only three years), created an unstoppable wave of public demand for change. The government was forced to act. Anuja And Neha Case Real Story
The news exploded. The parents of Anuja and Neha were shattered. The public was incandescent with rage. Protests erupted across Pune and Maharashtra. Social media flooded with demands for the boy to be tried as an adult.
Yet, behind the placid exterior was a mind warped by obsessive love and a sense of grandiose entitlement. The boy was fixated on a local girl, let’s call her "Shraddha" (name changed to protect privacy). Shraddha was a friend of the two victims. The boy had proposed to her, but she had rejected him. Worse, she had confided in her friends, Anuja and Neha. The two cousins, trying to protect Shraddha from his persistent advances, had advised her to stay away from him. They had also, allegedly, spoken to his parents about his disturbing behavior. The two young women were cousins, practically sisters,
If the board finds that the juvenile had the mental capacity to commit the crime and understood the consequences, the case can be transferred to a Children’s Court, which can then sentence the convict to adult prison terms, albeit with some safeguards.
The families of Anuja and Neha were destroyed. They had lost their daughters. And then they lost their faith in the justice system. If there is a single, lasting consequence of the Anuja and Neha case, it is legislative reform. The case became the tipping point for India to re-examine its juvenile justice framework. The public discourse was relentless: How can a 17-year-old who plots a double murder with the foresight of a seasoned criminal be treated the same as a 12-year-old who steals a bicycle? The immediate assumption was a botched robbery or
The psychiatric evaluation came back with a damning verdict: The boy was not mentally ill. He was not intellectually disabled. He was a normal, functioning individual with "average to above-average intelligence" who understood "the nature and consequences of his acts." In other words, he knew exactly what murder was, and he did it anyway. Despite the public outcry and the psychiatric report, the Juvenile Justice Board stuck to the letter of the law in its final ruling in December 2015. The accused, now 18, was declared a juvenile at the time of the crime. The maximum sentence it could give was three years of confinement in a special home, including the time he had already spent in detention.