Identity of serial killer`s victim not known: Court

Even as Delhi court awarded life imprisonment till death to a serial killer for beheading and chopping off body parts of a man in 2007, the identity of the victim has not been established till date.

New Delhi: Even as a Delhi court on Monday awarded life imprisonment till death to a serial killer for beheading and chopping off body parts of a man in 2007, the identity of the victim has not been established till date. Additional Sessions Judge Kamini Lau pulled up the Delhi Police for not putting "efforts" to trace the family of the victim and directed the Commissioner of Police to ensure that the agency coordinates with its counterparts in Bihar to make efforts to establish the victim`s identity.

The court directed the concerned forensic authorities to preserve the DNA samples of the victim to establish his identity in future. It also said the police had filed the chargesheet in a "most casual and routine manner" in the case. "Before ending, I may observe that the identity of the deceased in the present case whom the convict referred as Dalip and also being referred to as Dalip by the court, has not been established till date... "No efforts whatsoever made to trace out the family of the victim. This being the background, I hereby direct that the DNA material of the deceased (exhibits and results) be preserved. Further, the Commissioner of Police, Delhi, shall ensure that coordinated steps are taken along with their counterparts in Bihar so that efforts are made to establish the identity of the deceased," the judge said. The court`s observations came while sentencing Chandrakant Jha, a native of Madhepura in Bihar, to life imprisonment till his death for murdering a person whom he used to call as Dalip days before May 18, 2007 by beheading his body and thereafter wrapping the decapitated body in a bag, he had thrown it outside Gate no.1 of the Central Jail, Tihar. Jha was sentenced to life term in one of the three cases of murder in which he has been convicted. The quantum of sentence in the other two murder cases will be pronounced on February 5 and 6. PTI