Verdict on rape and murder of 81-year-old on August 6

New Delhi: The sensational murder-cum-rape case of an 81-year-old woman reached its final stage on Tuesday with a trial court fixing August 6 for pronouncement of the verdict. The octogenarian’s 22-year-old male servant is accused of committing the horrendous crime on July 8, 2014.
The woman, widow of a senior journalist, was found dead in a semi-burnt condition on the second-floor flat of her four-storey building in south Delhi’s Greater Kailash-II.The woman had been living alone after her husband died in 2005. This incident had exposed the vulnerability of senior citizens to heinous crimes in the city.
Additional Sessions Judge Sanjiv Jain reserved the judgment after hearing final arguments. The prosecution cited circumstantial evidence, testimonies of witnesses, postmortem report of the victim and other medical reports to prove that Saifi was the culprit. The witnesses included the woman’s family members, neighbours, servants and security guards. Police had even claimed that Saifi had admitted to his crime during custodial interrogation.
Delhi Police filed the chargesheet in September 2014 against Saifi under IPC sections 302 (murder), 376 (rape) and 201 (destruction of evidence). The trial began on November 8, 2014 and was conducted on a daily basis for some time. However, due to pendency of forensic reports it was discontinued.
According to the prosecution, Saifi first raped the woman during which she became unconscious and then strangled her. Police told the court that the accused wanted to destroy the evidence of his brutality and he, therefore, set the woman ablaze.
Police said Saifi’s plan was that when the woman’s family and cops found her charred body, they would suspect that she had died in a fire. The police also stated that during the probe they suspected an AC blast and had called in mechanics. “The mechanics told the police that the outdoor unit of the split AC was intact and there couldn’t have been a blast. This gave the police the first clue that the fire was deliberate,” stated the chargesheet.