He Said ‘I’m Innocent...’ But Hanged Him Anyway | Hetal Parekh Case | Crime Seen

On 5 March 1990, an 18-year-old girl named Hetal Parekh was found murdered inside her Kolkata apartment. The case shocked the country. The main accused was Dhananjoy Chatterjee, a security guard who worked in the same building. He was arrested months later and charged with rape, murder, and theft. What made this case even more intense was the lack of direct eyewitnesses. The entire conviction was based on circumstantial evidence. Despite this, the trial court, High Court, and eventually the Supreme Court upheld the death sentence, calling it a “rarest of rare” crime. After 14 years of legal battle, mercy petitions, and nationwide debate, Dhananjoy Chatterjee was executed on 14 August 2004 in Alipore Jail, becoming one of the first executions in India in the 21st century. But even after his death, the controversy didn’t end. Many activists, lawyers, and researchers questioned the investigation and raised doubts about whether justice was truly served. In this episode of Crime Seen, we revisit the full story, the investigation, the trial, and the lingering question that still divides opinions, was Dhananjoy guilty, or did India execute a possibly innocent man?