Truck driver gets life imprisonment for triple murder

Rajkot: The sessions court in Rajkot has sentenced a man to life imprisonment for the brutal murder of his wife, 11-year-old son and his wife's paramour. On Oct 22, 2023, Pravin alias Kanu Dafda intentionally ran them over with a truck out of spite and jealousy.Additional sessions judge, P J Kayastha, convicted Dafda, 46, under Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code. According to the prosecution, the motive behind the murder was an illicit relationship. The accused's wife, Parul, had separated from him and was living with Navnit Varu, taking her 11-year-old son with her. Harbouring a deep resentment over this living arrangement, Dafda tracked them down on the afternoon of Oct 22, 2023.As Navnit, Parul and the boy were riding a scooter from Kothariya Chokdi towards Aji Dam Chokdi, he rammed his truck into them near Ramvan, dragged the victims for some distance under the tyres and crushed them. He abandoned the vehicle and fled.The boy died on the spot after his head was crushed beneath the wheels. Navnit and Parul succumbed in the Rajkot Civil Hospital, but both later succumbed to their injuries while undergoing treatment.As there were no eyewitnesses to the actual collision, the case relied heavily on circumstantial evidence and a crucial dying declaration. Before his death, Navnit told his brother Hitesh, and nephew that Dafda had intentionally run them over. A motor vehicle inspector's report further solidified the prosecution's case by confirming that the truck had no mechanical defects, ruling out the defence's theory of a simple traffic accident. The formal complaint was registered by Hitesh at the Aji Dam police station. Investigation also found that the victim, seeing the accused driving the truck, stopped his two-wheeler at the side of the road and allowed the truck to pass, but even then he crashed it into the two-wheeler with the intention to murder all three victims."It appears that the accused was in such a state of mental disturbance at the time of the incident that he did not even spare his own son. It is evident that the accused intended to kill all three individuals during the incident," said assistant public prosecutor Binal Raveshiya.The prosecution pushed for the maximum penalty, highlighting the heinous nature of a father murdering his own young child without mercy. However, considering the accused's age of 46 years and his responsibilities towards his surviving son, the court sentenced him to life imprisonment, noting that the case did not strictly fall into the ‘rarest of rare' category.
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