LUCKNOW: The Lucknow bench of Allahabad high court has affirmed the death penalty awarded to a man from Lakhimpur Kheri convicted for the murder of his wife and four minor daughters. The court declined his appeal and plea to mitigate the sentence after finding that the prosecution successfully established the chain of circumstances. They were found to be conclusive and excluded all hypothesis except the fact that it was the convicted man alone who is guilty.
Holding that there is no chance of reformation of the man, the bench of Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Rajeev Singh said, “We find there is ample evidence to establish that the man committed pre-planned and pre-meditated murder of his wife and minor innocent children.”
The accused cut the body of the deceased and inflicted severe incised wounds on them. Thus, it is beyond doubt that the manner in which crime was committed using a banka (sharp-edged weapon) and thereafter bodies were burnt by pouring kerosene oil, was brutal, cruel and gruesome, the court said.
The bench passed the judgment accepting the reference of the trial court to confirm the capital sentence already awarded to the man in 2016 and dismissing his appeal.
Sessions judge Lakhimpur Kheri had on November 4, 2016 convicted and sentenced accused Rama Nand with death penalty for killing wife Sangeeta and four children in 2010. Sangeeta’s brother had lodged the FIR.
Opposing the plea of the convict, government advocate Vimal Kumar Srivastava submitted that he had confessed his guilt to two prosecution witnesses and banka and blood-stained clothes were recovered. Nand’s story that some unknown miscreants had killed his wife and children was found false.
Srivastava elaborated that Bharti had developed illicit relations with another woman of the village and she had become pregnant so he wanted to get rid of his wife and daughters. He had sent his 10-year-old son to another place a week before the incident, wrote the bench in the verdict.
Earlier, arguing for the convicted person, amicus curie Rajesh Kumar Dwivedi had pleaded that it was a case of circumstantial evidence and the prosecution failed to prove its case beyond doubt.
