HC reduces jail term of Mumbra man convicted of killing 4-year-old boy

A Mumbra resident who was convicted of killing the four-and-a-half-year-old son of a woman got a reprieve from the Bombay high court which commuted his jail term from life sentence to 10 years rigorous imprisonment (RI)

A Mumbra resident who was convicted of killing the four-and-a-half-year-old son of a woman got a reprieve from the Bombay high court which commuted his jail term from life sentence to 10 years rigorous imprisonment (RI). The court held the crime a culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

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According to the prosecution, Amir Ismail Sayyad, 32, had an extramarital affair with the mother of the victim, Rizwan, and frequently visited her house where she lived alone with her three children. On June 8, 2015, when Sayyad was having breakfast at her residence, Rizwan puked.

Irked over this, Sayyad bashed up the child with his belt and when he started crying loudly, he increased the volume of the TV and hit him with the remote on his head multiple times. After the child became unconscious, Sayyad fled the house. Rizwan was first taken to a local hospital and later shifted to Lokmanya Tilak General Hospital in Sion where he died on June 13.

Sayyad was booked for murder and arrested. The prosecution examined 13 witnesses, including the mother and elder sister of the victim. On September 26, 2017, the Thane sessions court convicted him for murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

The same year, he moved an appeal before the high court, challenging his conviction and prison term.

Sayyad’s counsel claimed before a division bench of justice A S Gadkari and justice Milind Jadhav that the victim’s mother had turned hostile. He also questioned the testimony of Rizwan’s elder sister who had tried to intervene and save the child. But the HC discarded the objections after stating that she not only witnessed the assault on her younger brother, but tried to save him and was also assaulted by the accused in the process.

“To discard her testimony would be doing injustice to the child who has witnessed the entire incident unfold before her own eyes. Minute perusal of her deposition and cross-examination shows that she is a fully reliable witness,” the bench said.

The HC, however, converted the conviction from murder to culpable homicide not amounting to murder on the ground that the assault was without any premeditation and the article used for the assault was not a dangerous weapon, but was picked up by the convict in a fit of rage. Hence, his prison term was brought down to 10-year RI.

“We conclude that though the accused had knowledge that his act of assaulting Rizwan on his head with the TV remote and leather belt would be likely to cause his death he had no intention to do so,” the bench said.