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West Bengal judge passes second death sentence in 7 days, both murder cases
Fast-track court judge Santosh Kumar Pathak had sentenced another man to death for killing a family in 2019 in the same Murshidabad district
A fast-track court judge at Berhampore in West Bengal’s Murshidabad district on Thursday sentenced a 24-year-old man to death after finding him guilty of murdering his 18-year-old former girlfriend in May 2022, public prosecutor Bibhas Chatterjee informed.
On August 24, the same judge, Santosh Kumar Pathak, sentenced another 22-year-old man to death for murdering primary school teacher Bandhu Prakash Pal (35), his wife Beauty Pal (31) and their seven-year-old son on October 8, 2019. Incidentally, Chatterjee was the public prosecutor in that trial as well.
The judge passed the sentence on Thursday after declaring Sushanta Chowdhury guilty of murdering Sutapa Chowdhury outside a girl’s hostel in Berhampore on May 22 last year. The police arrested Sushanta after examining CCTV footage from security cameras installed in the area. As many as 32 witnesses testified during the trial.
The 18-year-old college student, whose family lives in the adjoining Malda district, was stabbed 42 times, the prosecution told the court. When some local youths tried to intervene, the accused brandished a toy pistol to scare them away.
“Sushanta admitted that he killed Sutapa because she had walked out of the relationship. This cannot be a reason to commit such a heinous crime. He kept stabbing the victim to ensure her death,” Chatterjee told the media after the sentence was announced.
Sushanta broke down in court after hearing the order. His lawyer Pijush Ghosh said he will challenge the verdict in the Calcutta high court.
In the 2019 murder case, the judge declared Utpal Behera, a 22-year-old mason, guilty under sections 302 (murder) and 201 (tampering evidence) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The murders, which took place on the morning of Dashami, the last day of Durga Puja, had rocked West Bengal.
All three victims were stabbed and hacked multiple times inside their house in Murshidabad’s Jiaganj area. Beauty Pal was in her eighth month of pregnancy at the time, the autopsy report submitted in court revealed.
Behera, who had no criminal record before the murders, pleaded that he was innocent and framed by the police. He was arrested from Sagardighi area of the district a week after the murders following statements by locals who spotted him leaving the teacher’s house.
The prosecution told the court that Behara had purchased a short time insurance policy through the schoolteacher for which he used to give the latter ₹24,000 a year as premium. The policy lapsed in 2019 because Pal allegedly did not deposit the premium with the insurance company. This enraged the mason, following which he planned to commit the murders. The woman and her son were killed as they were eyewitnesses.
