Woman, paramour get life term for murdering husband in West Delhi

A Delhi court has awarded life imprisonment to a woman and her paramour for killing her husband, who objected to their illicit relationship.

A Delhi court has awarded life imprisonment to a woman and her paramour for killing her husband, who objected to their illicit relationship.

Additional sessions judge NK Malhotra handed down the jail term to Poonam, wife of the victim, and her paramour Rajiv, for offences of murder read with criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence under IPC while relying on circumstantial evidence.

“In the present case, the chain of circumstance is complete and indicates that both the accused persons are held guilty without any hypothesis of their innocence,” the court said.

The court imposed a fine of Rs 25,000 on Rajiv and Rs 7,000 on Poonam with a direction that out of the total amount, Rs 15,000 be paid to the victim Sanjay’s father.

It also directed West District Service Legal Authority to award appropriate compensation to legal heirs of the victim under the Compensation Scheme 2011 of Delhi.

While holding the accused guilty, the court relied on victim’s postmortem report which stated he suffered six injuries. “All the injuries were ante-mortem (before death) in nature. Thus, deceased died homicidal death.”

According to the prosecution, Rajiv was arrested on September 5, 2013, after a missing person complaint was lodged by the victim’s father.

It said that Poonam, Sanjay’s wife, had abducted him with Rajiv’s help as the victim objected to their relationship.

The police said Rajiv, a security guard by profession, confessed to an illicit relationship with Poonam and their intention to kill her husband as he was suspicious and would quarrel with Poonam.

The confession also stated that Sanjay was taken to a godown in west Delhi where Rajiv and Poonam slit his throat and disposed his body in a borewell.

However, both convicts denied their statement recorded under Criminal Procedure Code, saying they were falsely implicated by the police who made them sign on blank sheets of paper.