A model court on 04-January-2024 sentenced a man to life imprisonment for killing his wife.
Meghraj Anand was found guilty of strangling his wife Kaanta Kumari to death at his flat in the Lea Market area within the jurisdiction of the Baghdadi police station on June 5, 2021.
Additional Sessions Judge Abdul Hafeez Lashari of the Model Criminal Trial Court (South) also ordered the convict to pay Rs500,000 as compensation to the legal heirs of the deceased woman.
“The prosecution’s case relies heavily on circumstantial evidence and medical findings, which overwhelmingly point to Meghraj Anand’s guilt in the intentional killing of his wife,” the judge observed.
Explaining the reason for not awarding capital punishment to the convict, the judge said that certain mitigating circumstances influenced the severity of the sentence.
“These mitigating factors, derived from the evidence presented by both the prosecution and the defense, include the absence of eyewitnesses to the actual act of strangulation and the lack of direct evidence of premeditation or a planned act of murder,” he noted.
“The act appears to have arisen from an impulsive conflict rather than a deliberate, calculated plan. Considering these mitigating circumstances, though the act was grievous, it does not warrant the severest penalty (death).”
According to the prosecution, the accused killed his wife by strangling her on June 5, 2021 and attempted to paint the murder as a suicide.
Rajesh, brother of the victim, had lodged an FIR stating that Kaanta tied the knot with the accused on Feb 4, 2020, and had a six-to-seven-month-old baby girl from the marriage. He said that a few months after the marriage, Anand’s behaviour changed and he started abusing his wife after being involved in an affair with another girl. He said that prior to this incident, the accused had attempted to kill Kaanta by putting a pillow on her face, adding that he used to maltreat her on different pretexts and not allow her to talk to her family on phone.
On June 5, 2021, Rajesh said the accused informed him over phone that his sister had committed suicide by hanging herself by neck and that Kaanta had been shifted to the Civil Hospital where doctors had pronounced her dead.
The prosecution said the FIR was lodged after the victim’s family grew suspicious about the circumstances leading to her death, adding that a post-mortem examination after her body was exhumed declared her death as a homicide. During the trial, Rajesh testified that Kaanta had married Anand out of love and after three months of the marriage, her father-in-law passed away, leading to increased tensions in her marital relationship.
“Kaanta expressed to her family that her husband was threatening her with a second marriage and subjecting her to mental torture,” the complainant maintained.
The judge noted: “The medical evidence produced by the prosecution is supporting the version of prosecution that the deceased died due to strangulation and not supporting the version advanced by the accused that the deceased died by committing suicide.”
Published in News Daily on 05-Januray-2024.