Delhi court sentences man to life imprisonment for murder

Delhi court sentences man to life imprisonment for murder

New Delhi, A Delhi court on Monday sentenced a murder accused to life imprisonment and ruled out it was a "rarest of the rare" case to award him death penalty.

Delhi court sentences man to life imprisonment for murder

Principal district and sessions judge Vinod Kumar was hearing the case against Naushad Alam, booked by Punjabi Bagh Police Station under Section 302 of IPC.

Additional public prosecutor Atul Kumar Shrivastava said the victim, Shakeel Ahmed, was murdered by the accused by inflicting multiple injuries on his head with a blunt object in the intervening night of August 5-6, 2019.

The court, while convicting the accused for murder, said the prosecution proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt and the circumstantial evidence against the Alam was "complete and compelling".

The absence of a motive could not weaken the prosecution’s case, it held.

"It is clear that the circumstances in which Ahmed was murdered are within the special knowledge of the accused, and there is no explanation on his part about the cause of the murder of his co-worker," the court said.

The court rejected the defence's arguments that the murder investigation was riddled with contradictions and defects aside from the fact that no CCTV footage was collected from the scene of crime, indicating gaps in circumstantial evidence.

"The crux of the issue is that prosecution is required to prove that the accused was continuously present with the deceased from the last seen till the death of the deceased," the order said.

Once it was proved, the court said, the burden was on the accused to establish that he did not commit the offence.

Alam failed to discharge this burden, it held.

The arguments on sentencing commenced after Alam was convicted, following which the judge said, "It is not a case which falls under the category of rarest of rare cases. Therefore, I sentence the convict to imprisonment for life under Section 302 of the IPC."

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