New Delhi: A woman, who killed her three- month-old daughter by throwing her in a sewer to get rid of her, has been sentenced to life imprisonment by a Delhi court which said it was a cold blooded and pre-planned murder.
Additional Sessions Judge Hemani Malhotra awarded the jail term to 24-year-old Gudiya Khatoon, a Bihar native, saying that she does not deserve any leniency considering the nature of offence.
Gudiya was held guilty for murdering one of her infant twin daughters by gagging her mouth and throwing her in the sewer in LNJP Hospital in central Delhi on the morning of October 29, 2013.
"It is evident from the circumstances that accused Gudiya Khatoon cold bloodedly pre-planned the murder of her own daughter who was barely three months old to get rid of her.
"I am of the considered opinion that prosecution has proved its case under sections 302 (murder) and 203 (giving false information regarding an offence committed) of the IPC against Gudiya beyond shadow of doubt for throwing and causing death of her three-month-old infant into sewer and then giving false information to police (of kidnapping) to escape penal action," the judge said.
The court while awarding the punishment said it was not a rarest of rare case and imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 on her.
According to prosecution, on the morning of the incident, Gudiya informed the police that her infant daughter has been kidnapped by a woman at LNJP Hospital.
One of her twin daughters was ill and was admitted in the hospital and she was staying in the ward with them, she had told police, adding that the other child started crying.
She asked a woman to hold her daughter for a moment and when she returned, the woman along with infant was missing.
In the evening, the infant's body was found in a sewer in the hospital and during investigation, police came to know that Gudiya was upset since the birth of twin daughters and she could not look after them properly.
Gudiya had told the police that she was disturbed when
she heard her daughter crying and in the morning, she gagged her mouth and threw her in the sewer and concocted the story of kidnapping of her child and narrated it to her husband.
During the trial, Gudiya claimed she was innocent and asserted that her daughter was kidnapped by a woman.
The court, however, rejected her claim saying it also does not appear logical as to why kidnapper, instead of demanding a ransom from the accused and her husband or trafficking the child, would throw their daughter in the sewer without any motive or enmity.
It also said that the infant was last seen with her mother and this last seen evidence was sufficient to hold the accused guilty for the cold blooded murder of her own child.
