Death sentence for man who burnt woman after failed rape bid

Agra: A local court in Mathura on Tuesday awarded the death penalty to a 28-year-old man from Haryana’s Palwal district for burning alive a 30-year-old woman, described in case records as his distant sister, after a failed rape bid. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 1.30 lakh and said the case met the “rarest of rare” threshold, ruling that life imprisonment could not meet the gravity of the crime.

In its 26-page verdict, the court of special judge Vikas Kumar called it one of the “rarest of the rape cases”. “This case falls within the category of ‘rarest of rare’ where the alternative option of life imprisonment is unquestionably foreclosed,” the court said in its order, while relying on the brutality of the crime, the evidence placed before it and the impact of the offence on society.

Speaking to TOI, Mathura district govt counsel, crime, Shivram Singh Tarkar said the case dated back to March 11, 2025, when the accused, Umesh Kumar, a manual labourer, entered the house of Rekha Kumari, 30, a mother of two children, wearing a saree and disguised as a woman. He was carrying a bottle of petrol and allegedly caught hold of Rekha with the intention of raping her, but when she resisted and raised an alarm, he poured kerosene on her and set her on fire.

“The convicted man had a prior criminal record and was awarded life imprisonment by a local court in Haryana’s Palwal district in 2018 after he, along with his lover, murdered her husband in 2016 because he opposed their illicit relationship,” the govt lawyer said. Case records accessed by TOI showed that Punjab and Haryana high court later granted him bail in that case.

Rekha, who had suffered 85% burns, died during treatment at SN Medical College in Agra on March 12, 2025, and named the accused in her dying declaration. Police arrested Umesh after he jumped from the victim’s house while fleeing and suffered injuries. Around six months before the murder, Umesh had abducted Rekha, though police later recovered her and reunited her with her family.

An FIR was filed at Farah police station on the complaint of Rekha’s husband, Sanjay Kumar alias Lalaram, under BNS sections 74 (use of force on any woman intending to outrage her modesty), 103(1) (murder), and 333 (house trespass). In his complaint, Sanjay said Rekha was alone at home when the incident took place, as their children were in school and he was working in his field. After completing the probe, police filed the chargesheet, and the case went to trial after Umesh denied the charges.

In Nov 2025, Umesh moved a bail plea, which the court rejected. During the trial, he claimed in his defence that Rekha’s husband had killed her because he opposed their relationship, but the court rejected the argument and held Umesh guilty on April 30. On May 5, the court relied on eyewitness accounts, medical reports and circumstantial evidence to establish his involvement, stating that the evidence formed a complete chain pointing conclusively to his guilt.
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