E-Paper
5 of family get life term for Samrala man’s murder
Also fined ₹5,000 each, had abducted 38-year-old victim from his workshop and murdered him with kirpans at their house in June 2016
A local court sentenced five members of a family including a woman to life imprisonment in a 2016 murder case.
The court of additional sessions judge Muneesh Arora also imposed a fine of ₹5,000 each on Gurdeep Singh, 41, his wife Manjinder Kaur, 35, his brothers Manjit Singh, 61, Sukhdev Singh, 59, and Amarjit Singh, 46, all residents of Chawa village in Samrala.
The matter dates back to June 10, 2016, when the convicts abducted the victim, Ravinder Singh, 38, a resident of Samrala, from his workshop at Bijja village on Payal road, brought him to his house and murdered him.
As per the prosecution, the accused had prior enmity with the victim and nursed a grudge against him as he had illicit relations with Manjinder.
The prosecution said the convicts being members of unlawful assembly, armed with deadly weapons, assaulted and killed him.
The court convicted the five on the basis of circumstantial evidence which was corroborated with the statements of prosecution witnesses.
Court dismisses self-defence plea
While pronouncing the verdict, the court dismissed the plea of self-defence taken by the accused. Amarjit had stated that he killed Ravinder as he was attempting to rape his wife. The court stated no medico-legal report had been provided to prove that Amarjit received injuries in the scuffle as the victim was trying to rape his wife.
“On the other hand, postmortem report of the deceased reveals that he was brutally murdered... and there is specific version of the prosecution witnesses that the accused... initially abducted deceased from his workshop on false promise of compromise, brought him to their house and then committed the murder with kirpans,” the court observed.
“The accused intentionally murdered the deceased as they were nursing a grudge against him due to his illicit relations with Manjinder Kaur,” said the court.
