Udhampur: A man who murdered his mother eight years ago was awarded the death sentence on Saturday.
Principal District and Session Judge Udhampur, Haq Nawaz Zargar awarded death sentence to the man from Ramnagar.
As per the prosecution, on December 7, 2014, an information was received at the Police Station Ramnagar that accused Jeet Singh with criminal intention murdered his mother Vaishno Devi at his house and when his wife Santosh Devi tried to rescue her, the accused also made a murderous assault on her, leaving her critically injured.
A case vide FIR No 125/2014 was registered at Police Station Ramnagar for the commission of offences under Sections 302/307 of the Ranbir Penal Code and the investigation was started and challan presented in the court.
“After hearing public prosecutor of J&K, Koshal Kotwal and counsel for accused and considering the statement of two prosecution witnesses – the son and wife of the accused and also the circumstantial evidence in the form of disclosure statement of the accused, the recoveries made on the basis of disclosure statement and other circumstantial evidence, which the prosecution had produced and proved before court, it is well established and proved that the accused had committed the offence,” the court said.
It said that this clearly established that the crime had been committed in a most brutal manner by the convict and the deceased was none other than the one who had given birth to the convict.
The court said that the deceased was a hapless and helpless widow and was unarmed without offering any resistance or provocation to the convict at the time of occurrence.
“It is clear that the instant crime has been committed for the reason that the convict was demanding 2 kanal land from the deceased besides asking her to reside with other son Mulakh Raj. Such kind of crimes, besides being anti-social, shock the very conscious of the society where the relation of mothers are taken on the highest pedestal on the moral as well as religious grounds,” it said.
The court said that cases of such nature arose intense and extreme indignation of the society, which ultimately gives ample power to the courts to award maximum punishment for commission of such acts by the wrong doers.
It said that on the existence of aforesaid mitigating and aggravating circumstances and evaluation thereof, the court finds that the aggravating circumstances were much more grave and serious than the mitigating circumstances.
“As such the instant case falls within the ambit of ‘rarest of rare cases’ and therefore, in my pensive opinion the accused Jeet Singh does not deserve any leniency in the sentences to be awarded to him except sending the convict to gallows would be adequate,” the court said.
It said that in view of the discussion made and on the facts and circumstances of the case, convict Jeet Singh son of Krishan Singh Thakur of Rassain Ramnagar, Udhampur is sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for 10 years and pay a fine of Rs 3000 for the commission of offence under Section 307 of the Ranbir Penal Code and in default of payment of fine, he would further undergo simple imprisonment for a month.
The court said that the convict was also sentenced to death for the commission of offence under Section 302 RPC and he should be hanged by neck till he is dead and for the commission of offence under Section 4/25 of the Arms Act, the convict was sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment of three years and fine of Rs 2000.
It said that in case of failure to pay the fine he would further undergo rigorous imprisonment for a month. “All the sentences will run concurrently,” the court said.