New Delhi: A Delhi court has awarded life
imprisonment to a 25-year-old man for strangulating to death
his brother-in-law in a "planned and cold blooded manner".
The court noted that accused Ajeet after killing
his sister`s husband Suraj Mohan Dass on September 19, 2006
packed his body in an iron trunk to remove evidence from the
spot.
"As the aggravating circumstances are concerned, it is
evident that murder of Dass was committed in a planned manner
and in cold blood. Convict Ajeet is sentenced to rigorous
imprisonment for life for the offence under Section 302
(murder) of the Indian Penal Code," additional sessions judge
Kamini Lau said.
"After murdering Dass, the convict had put his body in
an iron trunk in order to cause disappearance of evidence of
crime and to screen himself from legal punishment," the court
noted.
Lau noted in the judgement that there was no eye
witness to the murder, but the victim`s children had seen
Ajeet bolting the doors when he was inside.
On the fateful day, Ajeet went to Dass` house and
asked his daughter to go out of the room. He then bolted the
door and strangulated Dass with a rope, the prosecution said.
Police said that he dumped it into an iron trunk and
locked it. Dass` children repeatedly attempted to persuade the
convict to open the door but he opened it only after his
sister insisted him. On being asked about Dass, Ajeet replied
that he had left the house after having lunch.
After killing Dass, Ajeet felt remorse and went to the
nearby Tilak Nagar police station to confess his crime. He
narrated the whole incident to police officials and helped
them in recovering the body.
Ajeet stated in his statement that he had committed
Dass` murder as he used to often quarrel with his sister and
beat her.
The postmortem report revealed ligature marks on the
victim`s neck which were sufficient to cause death in ordinary
course of nature, the court noted.
Prosecution said that Ajeet had committed the murder
in a planned and cold blooded manner and should be punished
with death penalty so that it should serve as a precedent.
"No doubt all murders are most degrading and depraving
but the case in hand certainly does not fall within the
category of rarest of rare or least even in category of rare
case," the judge said.
PTI
