Life sentence for rape and murder in Calcutta hospital

An Indian court on Monday sentenced the man convicted of raping and murdering a trainee doctor in Calcutta to life in prison, sparing him the death penalty in a case that is a chilling example of how the country remains dangerous for women.

The August killing sparked months of protests and political unrest in the state of West Bengal, of which Calcutta, formerly Calcutta, is the capital.

The Indian Central Bureau of Investigation, its equivalent to the FBI, had asked the court to impose the death sentence against Sanjay Roy, the author of these crimes. So was the victim’s family and the state’s powerful chief minister, Mamata Banerjee.

But the court ruled that Mr. Roy’s crimes did not meet the “rarest of the rare” standard used to justify the execution of people convicted of capital offenses.

Rekha Sharma, former head of the National Commission for Women and a member of Parliament, told an Indian news agency that “the victim’s family and all of us are really sad” that Mr. Roy had avoided the death penalty. A member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party, she attributed this conviction to the shortcomings of the Calcutta police, who answer to Ms. Banerjee.

Before sentencing, Mr. Roy, who had served as a volunteer with the Calcutta police, said he was not guilty. “I didn’t do that. I was framed,” he told the court on Monday. A few months ago, he said the written confession he gave to police was coerced.