51-yr-old man gets life imprisonment for murdering wife, daughter in Delhi

The court observed, “The murder of two members of the family and the attempt to murder a third during the same occurrence reflect an exceptionally serious degree of violence”

A Delhi court on Monday sentenced a 51-year-old man to life imprisonment for murdering his wife and daughter in an early-morning assault inside their house in South Delhi’s Sangam Vihar in 2018, observing that the accused showed an “exceptionally serious degree of violence” towards his own wife and daughters.

The court said that the injuries were neither superficial nor accidental. (File photo)

The order was passed by additional sessions judge (ASJ) Samar Vishal of Saket courts, sentencing the accused, Nand Kishore, for killing his wife Vidyawati and daughter Kavita, with an iron rod, nearly eight years after the incident, which also left one of his other daughters with severe irreversible injuries.

The court observed, “The murder of two members of the family and the attempt to murder a third during the same occurrence reflect an exceptionally serious degree of violence”.

The court added, “The fact that the victims were the convict’s own wife and daughters, who would ordinarily have looked to him for protection and security, materially aggravated the offence”.

The court said that the injuries were neither superficial nor accidental.

“They were caused by forceful blows with a heavy iron rod directed at the heads of the victims and resulted in fatal and near-fatal consequences,” the court said.

According to Delhi Police’s case, represented by additional public prosecutor Arun Kumar Singh, Nand Kishore, who worked as a cycle and rickshaw repairer, attacked his wife and daughters with an iron rod at their Sangam Vihar residence in the early hours of August 28, 2018. The prosecution had alleged that he was under financial stress over his inability to arrange the marriages of his daughters.

Kavita, around 22, was brought dead to the AIIMS Trauma Centre, while Vidyawati subsequently died during treatment. Suman survived but suffered severe head injuries and continued to remain bedridden.

In its judgement convicting Kishore on August 31, the court had noted the testimonies of the accused’s son’s, Rahul and Mohit, who were also present in the house, established that Nand Kishore was inside the room immediately after the assault, in close proximity to the three severely injured women.

The judgement also noted the medical evidence, which established that the deaths of Vidyawati and Kavita were homicidal. Both suffered severe cranio-cerebral injuries caused by blunt force. Suman too had suffered a major head injury, including a skull fracture and protrusion of brain matter, which doctors described as dangerous, the judgement said.

The court also relied on the fact that Nand Kishore was found inside the room immediately after the assault, while the victims were lying injured and bleeding.

The iron rod found in the room, the court noted, was bloodstained and carried the DNA profiles of both deceased women. The judge noted that the weapon had been seen in Nand Kishore’s hand immediately after the cries were heard and that it was recovered from the same room where the assault had taken place.

The court also acknowledged that the victims’ blood was not detected on the accused’s clothes and that no identifiable fingerprints were recovered from the iron rod, but it held that these circumstances did not outweigh the other evidence when considered cumulatively.

Nand Kishore, through his counsel, had maintained the defence that an unidentified burglar entered the house through the interconnected rooftops of neighbouring houses, attacked the women and escaped after allegedly stealing Suman’s mobile phone.

The court had rejected this explanation as a “bare and unsubstantiated possibility”.

It noted that although the interconnected rooftops made such entry physically possible, there was “no evidence that an outsider had actually entered the house”. The court said, “No witness had seen a stranger inside or escaping from the roof, and there were no signs of forcible entry, housebreaking, ransacking or robbery”.

The court further observed that the accused’s own explanation that he had confronted a burglar was unsupported by any of his sons, none of whom saw an outsider or heard him raise an alarm about an intruder.

“Once the prosecution established that the assault occurred inside the family room and that Nand Kishore was found there immediately afterwards holding the weapon carrying the deceased women’s DNA, the circumstances surrounding his presence with the weapon were matters especially within his knowledge,” the court said.

Kishore’s explanation, the court noted, was neither corroborated nor supported by physical or contemporaneous evidence.