Security guard gets life term for severing wife’s head, walking with it on road

Pune: The court of additional sessions judge, Sumit G Joshi, on Tuesday sentenced a 73-year-old watchman to life imprisonment for murdering his wife and walking on a road with her severed head in 2015, holding that the prosecution proved the charge beyond reasonable doubt through consistent eyewitness accounts and forensic evidence.Holding that the prosecution had established the homicidal death and the involvement of the accused, the court convicted the watchman, Ramchandra Shehu Chavan, for offences under sections of the Indian Penal Code, including murder and wrongful confinement. The judge sentenced him to life imprisonment, along with a fine of Rs 5,000.The sensational murder on Oct 9, 2015, had sent shockwaves through the city. The watchman, then 63-year-old, severed his wife's head with an axe outside their house in the Katraj area following a quarrel around 10.30am. He then walked with the axe and his wife's severed head for 500 metres on a busy road.According to public prosecutor Prem Kumar Agarwal, Chavan suspected his wife's character. He believed that she had an extra-marital relationship with her son-in-law. Evidence showed that Chavan attacked her with an axe and later dismembered the body.On seeing Chavan strolling with his wife's head, a resident called up the police control room. A motorcyclist also called the traffic police personnel on duty in the area. A police patrol team from the Bharati Vidyapeeth police station and traffic police personnel arrived at the spot. On seeing them, Chavan threw the axe and the head, which he had planned to dump in the Katraj lake, and surrendered.The Bharati Vidyapeeth police personnel found Chavan's daughter-in-law and her two minor children locked inside the house. The mutilated body of the victim with multiple injuries was also lying there. Medical evidence confirmed that the death was homicidal, with the postmortem recording 26 ante-mortem injuries, including chop wounds and amputations.The court relied on the testimonies of several eyewitnesses, including neighbours who saw Chavan assaulting the victim and dismembering her body. The victim's daughter-in-law testified that she saw the accused attack the victim and was locked inside the house when she tried to intervene.The court considered the conduct of the accused after the murder, noting that he was seen walking on the road with the weapon and the severed head, which corroborated the prosecution's case. CCTV footage, video recordings and seizure of blood-stained clothes also supported its case.