Man gets life in jail for killing, burying wife in 2020

Varanasi: Court sentenced a man to life imprisonment on Tuesday for killing his wife and burying the body in the courtyard of his house in Bhitari village under Lohta police station in 2020. The court of Additional District and Sessions Judge (Fourteenth) Atul Chaudhary sentenced Rajendra Prasad (56) to rigourous imprisonment and Rs 50,000 fine under section 302 (murder) of IPC and, three years of imprisonment and a fine of Rs 20,000 under section 201 (concealing evidence) of IPC.Additional district govt counsel (criminal) Rohit Maurya said that while pronouncing the sentence, the judge commented that the punishment is extremely necessary considering gravity of the crime.Complainant Ramvilas Harijan stated that on Dec 28, 2020, he and his younger brother Amar had gone to work leaving their father Rajendra Prasad and mother Asha Devi at home. When Amar returned home in the afternoon and asked about his mother, Rajendra replied she had gone to a goldsmith’s shop. When Ramvilas returned home in the evening he got the same answer from his father.Ramvilas and Amar got suspicous when they saw Rajendra leveling the soil with an axe in the courtyard of the house. On being asked, he said he was leveling the floor but when his sons entered the house they noticed blood splattered on the walls. They dug the spot in the courtyard and found Asha Devi’s body anointed with salt to make it decompose fast. When the brothers questioned Rajendra rigorously, he confessed to having killed his wife over a property dispute.Ramvilas lodged FIR the same day and police arrested the accused three days after the incident. The chargesheet was filed on Jan 24, 2021. A total of 10 witnesses were examined in the case.