HC upholds life-term of man who stabbed aunt 54 times

The Bombay high court (HC) on Friday upheld the life sentence handed down by the sessions court to a 33-year-old from Pune for killing his maternal aunt by stabbing her 54 times at Mulund

Mumbai The Bombay high court (HC) on Friday upheld the life sentence handed down by the sessions court to a 33-year-old from Pune for killing his maternal aunt by stabbing her 54 times at Mulund in August 2010.

HC held the trial court was justified in convicting the accused for the alleged offence based of the evidence on record. (HT Photo)

A division bench of justice Prasanna Varale and justice N R Borkar dismissed an appeal filed by the convict, Saket Vikas Panase, and also rejected his ground that no motive was attributed to him for committing the heinous crime.

The court said the prosecution case cannot be doubted just because no motive was attributed to him, or no investigation was carried out in relation to few articles which were found at the place of the incident.

HC held the trial court was justified in convicting the accused for the alleged offence based of the evidence on record.

Panase, a resident of Chinchwad area in Pune, is presently lodged in Kolhapur jail. He had challenged the sessions court order dated August 1, 2012, convicting and sentencing him to life imprisonment for the murder.

According to the prosecution, on August 25, 2010, Panase, then 21, who used to study mechanical engineering at G S Moses College of Engineering, Pune, came to the house of his maternal aunt Mangala Darbhe, 58, who resided in Mulund. Her son and daughter-in-law had gone for work when the accused assaulted her with a knife and killed her. Panase had come to Mumbai after failing in exams.

The defence of the accused was that two unknown persons had assaulted his aunt. He claimed that his family had planned a trip to Africa and for that he and his family had to take yellow fever vaccines.

According to his version, on August 25, 2010, he completed all his paper work in Mumbai and visited his aunt. He had lunch at her place and then went to take a nap.

He said after the doorbell rang and two unknown persons forcibly entered the house, they tried to attack him with a sharp object, he defended and however got injured and dazed. He heard the deceased cry for help, he saw she was lying in a pool of blood. He called his mother in Pune narrating the incident and became unconscious while talking on the phone.

The trial court had, however, refused to accept his version and held that the prosecution had proved his guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

His counsel argued before HC that the son of the deceased had not raised any suspicion about the accused either in the FIR or in his evidence. The prosecution had not attributed any motive to the accused and there was no evidence on record to show that the accused was short tempered or violent to cause 54 stab wounds to his maternal aunt and in the absence of such evidence, the trial court was not justified in convicting him.

An assistant public prosecutor submitted that the evidence on record showed that safety door and main door of the flat were properly closed, and this fact was circumstance was not consistent with the version of the accused, as no assailants after coming out of the flat would take the risk of standing there even for few moments to close both the doors. Besides, the prosecutor pointed out that other circumstances were also not consistent with the defence of the accused and therefore, the trial court was justified in convicting the accused.

HC said the fact that the deceased died of homicidal death is not disputed and the accused was the only person present at the time of the alleged incident.

HC refused to accept that the accused fell unconscious due to injuries, as his call data record showed that he had made two more calls to his mother, though he claimed he fell unconscious while speaking to his mother.