Friday, October 8, 1999
Shrink: Consider parole of kid killer
By GRETCHEN DRUMMIE, TORONTO SUNA psychiatrist has recommended that Amina Chaudhary -- convicted of strangling her lover's young nephew in 1982 -- deserves "careful consideration" of a reduction in her parole eligibility as she poses no threat.
But yesterday, prosecutor Tony Loparco pointed out that a 1997 report written by that same psychiatrist, Dr. Robert Brown, had factual errors in it, including even the number of children Chaudhary has with her husband, also a convicted killer. The report was used to grant her escorted temporary absences from prison.
Chaudhary, 38, was convicted by a jury on Feb. 8, 1984 of the first-degree murder of Rajesh Gupta, 8, who vanished on his way to school on Feb. 3, 1982.
She was jailed for life with no parole for 25 years but she is applying for a reduction in that time under section 745 of the Criminal Code, the so-called "faint-hope clause."
The Crown's theory was that Chaudhary killed Rajesh out of revenge after her long-time lover Vijay Gupta married someone else in India without telling her. Gupta was Rajesh's uncle and adoptive brother. Chaudhary, meanwhile, had entered into an arranged marriage in 1980 herself but continued to have sex with Gupta.
She was pregnant at the time of the killing and in a telegram indicated the unborn baby was Gupta's.
In a parole eligibility report prepared by parole officer Michael Kerr, Brown is quoted as saying Chaudhary has made as much as she can of her incarceration and "there is nothing to be gained either for her or society by continued imprisonment."
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