Life for 3 who killed mom in front of 11-year-old son

MUMBAI: A sessions court on Monday sentenced three men to life imprisonment for murdering a woman of 35 in front of her 11-year-old son in a jewellery robbery at her Andheri (east) home in 2011.
The case was cracked as one of the accused, Zubair Ahmed (29), had left at the crime spot a damning clue: a tiffin bag with his SSC mark sheet.
He was carrying the document in order to get a passport as was planning to go abroad to look for a job.Incidentally , he had secured first division in the exam.
Among the 16 witnesses examined by public prosecutor Vijay Malankar, the victim's son was key . He identified Ahmed and the two others, Yusuf Sayyed (31) and Karthik Gaundar (31). He deposed in 2012 and told the court that at the time of the incident, on July 28, 2011, he lived with his parents on the mezzanine floor in Mahakali Rahivasi Sangh. His father worked as a driver, and his mother was a homemaker. The boy said that on the day of the crime, he returned from school at noon and took a nap alongside his mother on the floor of their one-room tenement. He said that at 3.30pm, he heard someone pushing the door, prompting his mother and him to get up. He recalled the three culprits entering the house. Sayyed told them the boy's father had taken Rs 1.5 lakh from him.
The boy said that when his mother refused to believe the man, he wielded a knife and asked her to hand over her jewellery . She refused to part with her gold. The boy said Sayyed and Gaundar then started strangling his mother with a towel, while Ahmed tied his hands and legs, and gagged him with a bedsheet. The woman was dragged to the kitchen by Sayyed and Gaundar. He said the culprits came out of the kitchen after 15 minutes and fled. He said that he somehow freed himself and went into the kitchen, where he saw his mother lying in a pool of blood, with her throat slit. The woman's necklace, bangles and earrings were missing. The boy said that he immediately ran to a neighbour, after which the police were called.The woman was taken to hospital, where she was declared dead.
After investigators found Ahmed's mark sheet, they got in touch with the state board and got the details of the school where Ahmed had appeared for the SSC exam in 2004. The police ultimately went to the school in Bandra where Ahmed had studied. With the help of his hall ticket, they got his photograph and Jogeshwari address from the school. The school's principal was among the witnesses.