After getting convicted wrongfully for a rape he did not commit and having to serve a seven-year sentence for it, a Ghatkopar resident has now written to the government seeking permission for euthanasia as his plea for compensation is gathering dust at court.

After getting convicted wrongfully for a rape he did not commit and having to serve a seven-year sentence for it, a Ghatkopar resident has now written to the government seeking permission for euthanasia as his plea for compensation is gathering dust at court.

Gopal Shete's world came crashing down on July 29, 2009, when he was wrongfully convicted of raping a girl and was sentenced to seven years behind bars ­ all because the victim identified her perpetrator as someone named 'Gopi' and the investigation agency thought it safe to deduce that Shete was the same person. Shete was acquitted by the Bombay High Court in June 2015, three months after he finished serving his sevenyear sentence. By then, a battle-worn Shete had lost much in life. His two daughters were forced to live in an orphanage, his wife had remarried and his father had passed away. Once having made a handsome Rs 50,000 per month, Shete was reduced to counting his pennies before every meal.

This was when a resolute Shete filed a writ petition seeking Rs 100 crore as interim compensation. The full amount sought by him amounts to Rs 200 crore. However, after the snail-paced course that his petition was getting subjected to, Shete has been forced to write to the concerned authorities to grant him permission to end his life.

Forty-year-old Shete recounted his journey for Mirror: "After studying hotel management, I earned Rs 50,000 from my first job at Hotel Leela Penta. I took a well-paying job with a local hotel after my wife was detected with tuberculosis. Suddenly, one day, I was arrested for a rape that happened at Ghatkopar railway station. I was with my family at the time of the crime, but I was falsely implicated. I was even denied my right to get bail repeatedly."

The acquittal order by Justice Abhay Thipsay reads: "In my opinion, this was a case where the identity of the appellant as the culprit had not been satisfactorily established. In my opinion, there was indeed a real and substantial doubt about the identity of the appellant as the culprit.

Pushed to the wall, Shete has now written to the Bombay High Court, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the Governor of the state, the President, the ministry of Home affairs and the Chief Minister.

His request is simple: "I was falsely implicated and I want compensation, otherwise I am going to end this life. So, if the court cannot give me justice, they better give me permission to end my life."

