A Mumbai sessions court today held all 3 convicts of the Shakti Mills photojournalist gangrape case guilty under section 376 E of IPC which attracts the maximum penalty of capital punishment.

The convicts have become the first to be convicted under this section that punishes repeat offenders with a life term or death sentence.

Kasim Bengali, Vijay Jadhav and Mohammed Salim Ansari are the common accused who are also convicted in the telephone operator gangrape case.

The three men had already been sentenced to life in prison on Friday after being found guilty of gang-raping an 18-year-old telephone operator. The 22-year-old photo journalist of a magazine was gang raped when she had gone to the Shakti Mills compound in the Central Mumbai with a male colleague on an assignment.

The Bombay High Court had last week refused to interfere with the sessions court's decision to frame a fresh charge for repeat offence of rape.