Ghaziabad court hands death penalty to man convicted of killing seven members of a family

Ghaziabad: After a long trial of more than nine years, a Ghaziabad court on Monday awarded the death penalty to a convict for murdering seven members of a family

Ghaziabad: After a long trial of more than nine years, a Ghaziabad court on Monday awarded the death penalty to a convict for murdering seven members of a family. The court termed the murders as “rarest of rare”.

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The case relates to the murder of businessman Satish Goel (65), his wife, their son and daughter-in-law and their three minor children inside their house at Nai Basti in Ghaziabad on the night of May 21, 2013.

The case against convict Rahul Verma, then 21, who the police said was the former driver of the deceased family, has been on trial at a court in Ghaziabad.

During the gruesome incident, the seven persons who were brutally stabbed multiple times were identified as Satish Goel, his wife Manju (62), their son Sachin (36), daughter-in-law Rekha (34), and their three children Aman (10), Honey (12), and Megha (14).

Police maintained that the crime was committed single-handedly by Verma and he used a butcher’s knife to inflict dozens of deadly wounds to the seven victims.

The court held Verma guilty on Saturday and pronounced the quantum of punishment on Monday. It awarded him death penalty and a fine of ₹50,000 under Section 302 (murder), 10 years imprisonment and fine of ₹30,000 under Section 394 (voluntarily causing hurt in committing robbery) and imprisonment of three years and a fine of ₹10,000 under Section 411 (dishonestly receiving stolen property) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Verma was suspected of fleeing with ₹4 lakh cash (about 10 days before the murders) which was kept in Goel’s house for his treatment.

Ghaziabad police arrested Verma from near Ghaziabad railway station a day after the murders on May 22, 2013 and recovered some blood-stained clothes, shoes and other items. Police maintained that he bought a knife for ₹80 from a shop owned by Shakeel Ahmad at Dasna Gate and the same was used for the murders.

Since all the eye-witnesses to the crime were killed, the prosecution, while trying to prove the case of circumstantial evidence against Verma, produced 28 key witnesses to prove their theory.

“One of the key prosecution witnesses was Prashant Srivastava, a friend of Verma. He testified that the convict had called him up telling him that they can get ₹25-30 lakh. But he denied meeting him and went ahead with his journey to Allahabad. Verma told him that he will go alone for the loot with a knife. The second key witness was Shakeel Ahmad, who identified Verma as the person who purchased the knife which turned out to be the murder weapon,” said Devraj Singh, the lawyer representing the deceased family.

“All the evidence produced during the trial was included in the list of seizure memos,” Singh added. He said that forensic evidence of blood stains of two victims on a shirt recovered from Verma and DNA matching of saliva from a cigarette butt found at the scene of the crime proved that Verma was involved in the seven murders.

Verma’s family stays at Bajaria, which is barely 500 metres away from the scene of crime.

The defence lawyers maintained that there were gaps and fabrication in the police theory.

“We maintained that the cigarette butt was planted when police teams took Verma to the scene of the crime after his arrest. This piece of the cigarette butt was never photographed at the scene of crime and was added later in the list. Further, the SIM card which police maintained was used by him was in the name of some other person who was never produced as a witness. It was contended that he threw his trousers (worn during the crime) in a drain but he kept other blood-stained items safely in his bags which police seized later. This is highly questionable,” said Pankaj Sharma, the lawyer representing Verma.

Sharma added that there were gaps in prosecution theory and they will file an appeal in the high court.

“We maintained that the recovery is highly questionable and no blood marks were found on the upper part of the shoes which the investigators maintained were worn by Verma during the crime. Further, the blood of the victims was not found on the knife used during the crime. This is highly questionable. Further, the prosecution did not produce the man as a witness who roped in Verma as a driver at the house of the victims. So, during the course of investigation, we maintained that he was never employed as a driver. We expect to get relief once we move the high court,” Sharma added.

According to police investigation, victims Rekha and her minor daughter Megha, were killed in their second-floor bedroom while Satish was assaulted in the balcony of the first floor. His son Sachin was found dead near the stairs leading to the second floor and the two other children were also found dead on the first floor. Manju was murdered in the bedroom on the first floor.

The autopsy reports of the victims revealed that Aman suffered 11 major injuries while Rekha suffered 10 major injuries which were also bone deep. Megha had six major injuries while Honey sustained three major injuries to her body.

On the other hand, Sachin sustained six injuries while his mother Manju died after injuries to her neck, chest and abdomen.

“After more than nine years of legal battle, we are satisfied with the judgement. Justice has finally been delivered by the court,” said Sachin Mittal, son-in-law of victim Satish Goel.