New Delhi: A 45-year-old man charged with murdering a neighbour, has been sentenced to life imprisonment by a Delhi court which held the facts and circumstances proved the offence against the convict.
The court awarded the jail term to Vikas, resident of Baljeet Nagar here, but acquitted his mother and two brothers of the charge of murder by giving them benefit of doubt.
"It stands established on record that convict Vikas stabbed Rakesh Gupta with a knife and caused his death while he and his son were moving in the street where house of the accused?convict is situated. He stabbed Rakesh Gupta when the latter simply asked him to walk carefully.
"Having regard to all the facts and circumstances, the offence proved against the accused and the manner in which he committed the crime, the convict is hereby sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life and to pay a fine of Rs 20,000 for the offence under section 302 (murder) IPC," Additional Sessions Judge Narinder Kumar said.
The court, however, acquitted Vikas and three others of the charge of voluntarily causing hurt, saying the prosecution has not been able to establish that they had any such motive in commission of the crime.
According to the prosecution, the incident took place on the night of October 21, 2009, when Rakesh Gupta and his son Sunny reached near Vikas' house in the nearby street in the same locality in Patel Nagar, the convict and other accused intentionally hit the victim.
When Gupta objected to it, Vikas started beating him and his family members too joined them and they hit the victim with a stick and gave fist and leg blows, it had said, adding that when Sunny came forward to save his father, the accused also injured him.
The prosecution had said the convict and three others then stabbed Gupta with a knife and left him there. Sunny rushed to his house to inform his mother and sister about the incident, it had said.
A PCR call was made and Gupta was taken to a nearby hospital where he was declared brought dead by the doctors.
Sunny had told the police that previously also Vikas and his brothers used to hurl abuses at Gupta in drunken state and tease his sister.
During the trial, the accused had denied the allegations and claimed they were falsely implicated in the case.
