HC upholds life term: Out on bail, rape accused kills woman & daughter

The Chhattisgarh high court has upheld the conviction and life sentence of a 22-year-old man for the brutal murder of a woman and her minor daughter in Raipur, observing that the chain of circumstantial, medical and scientific evidence “unmistakably” established his guilt beyond reasonable doubt. A rape case has earlier been filed against him by the woman and he was also under trial in a Pocso case involving the daughter.Rejecting the accused’s insanity plea, a division bench comprising Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Ravindra Kumar Agrawal on May 11 dismissed the criminal appeal filed by the accused against the July 19, 2022 judgment of the trial court, which had convicted him under Sections 302 and 201 of the IPC for the murder of the woman and her minor daughter. The HC held that the prosecution had successfully established a complete and unbroken chain of incriminating circumstances, leaving “no room for any reasonable doubt” regarding the appellant’s involvement.According to the prosecution case, the accused murdered the woman by stabbing her in the neck near Jora Maidan in Raipur on the night of Jan 22, 2021. He then allegedly took her minor daughter to a nearby railway track and abandoned her there, where she was run over by a goods train. The prosecution further alleged that the accused attempted to destroy evidence by concealing the knife used in the crime and throwing mobile phones into a pond.The HC noted that the accused had earlier been booked in a rape case lodged by the victim woman and was convicted in a POCSO case after he sexually assaulted the minor daughter. The accused had been in jail and was out on bail.The court observed that prosecution witness had clearly testified that the accused was under pressure to marry the victim woman and had previously threatened to kill both her and the child. The court held that this evidence established “motive, preparation and pre-existing intention” on the part of the accused.The court also relied heavily on the extra-judicial confession allegedly made by the accused before former village sarpanch.The bench observed that every circumstance proved by the prosecution was consistent only with the hypothesis of guilt and excluded every possibility of innocence.The bench noted that the FSL report confirmed the presence of human blood on the knife recovered at the instance of the accused and on his clothes. The DNA report further established the biological relationship among the accused, the woman and her daughter, thereby corroborating the prosecution story regarding motive and relationship between the parties.Rejecting the defence plea of sudden provocation and insanity, the HC observed that there was “absolutely no material” on record to suggest unsoundness of mind or grave provocation. The court held that the brutality of the crime, prior threats and subsequent conduct of the accused clearly reflected a “conscious, calculated and deliberate course of conduct.”The bench made strong observations on the nature of the offence, stating that the acts attributed to the accused revealed “complete depravity and total disregard for human life.” It further observed that abandoning a minor child on a railway track after killing her mother demonstrated full awareness of the consequences of the act.