Deposition of 12-year-old eyewitness key as court gives Noida man life term for wife's murder

Time of India

2 days ago

Noida: A man facing trial for killing his wife in 2018 was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment by an additional district and sessions judge, the clinching deposition coming from the victim's nephew, who was 12 years when the crime was committed.
The court, however, did not find this to be a case that could be considered 'rarest of rare', the judicial yardstick to decide whether a deaths sentence can be given, and awarded the life term under Section 302 of IPC, besides slapping a fine of Rs 10,000 on the convict.
Raju alias Abbas aka Aslam, a resident of Sector 5, was accused of stabbing his wife Rubi with a knife while she was accompanying other family members to her sister's tea stall near Noida Authority's office on Aug 4, 2018.
The FIR was based on a complaint filed by Rubi's brother Shahrukh Khan. Shahrukh wasn't an eyewitness. He was told about the incident by his mother Jamila Khatun and nephew Rajan. Rajan (12) was with Rubi.
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Raju, who was arrested on Aug 9, denied the charges and said Rubi was killed by her previous husband, Rafiq. He also argued he was in Bandra (Mumbai) at the time of the killing. "On hearing about the murder, I returned to Noida on Aug 6 to lodge an FIR against Rafiq, but police arrested me instead," he told the court.
The prosecution presented the murder weapon, a kitchen knife, and the shirt worn by the assailant during the incident, which had blood spots, as evidence. Shahrukh informed the court his sister was indeed married to Rafiq in 2011 but had left him and married Raju in 2014. Raju and Rubi, he said, had a three-year-old son. "Raju would often quarrel with my sister, accusing her of continuing her relationship with her previous husband.
It was on this issue that he attacked her," he told the court.
Rajan's testimony became crucial because only he and Jamila were eyewitnesses in the case and Jamila died before she could testify. That made Rajan the star witness. He told the court he saw Raju attack his 'mausi (aunt)' with a knife, stabbing her in the chest and stomach. He said he tried to catch Rajan but was pushed back by him. "My grandmother (Jamila) fainted.
With the help of people on the street, my mausi was taken to hospital," he said.
The defence argued that police did not conduct a fingerprint examination on the knife and there were discrepancies in the timekeeping of the murder. "While the complainant has mentioned 2pm as the time of the incident, hospital records show that the body was brought for postmortem at 1.35pm," the defence counsel pointed out.
This was, however, rejected by the court on the ground that the complainant was not present on the spot. Citing rulings of various high courts, additional district and sessions judge Sanjay Kumar Singh Pratham said it was not mandatory on the part of the prosecution to conduct a fingerprint examination when the murder weapon was recovered from the accused and an eyewitness was available to testify.
The judge ruled that culpable homicide was proved beyond doubt by the prosecution, but the circumstances and the weapon used do not fall in the 'rarest of rare' category, warranting a life term, not capital punishment.