Allahabad Excessive Courtroom sentences man to life for murdering spouse below the pretext of “driving out a ghost”

The Allahabad Excessive Courtroom on Wednesday convicted 71-year-old Awadhesh Kumar and his confederate Mata Prasad for strangling Kumar's spouse in 1982 below the pretext of “driving out a ghost”. The court docket described the case as a stunning instance of blind religion used to cowl a homicide. After a 43-year-long authorized battle, a division bench of Justices Rajiv Gupta and Harvir Singh sentenced each to life imprisonment, overturning a 1984 trial court docket acquittal, a TOI report said.

Courtroom highlights blind religion as motive

The court docket additionally imposed three-year sentences below IPC Part 201 for destroying proof, saying the sentences will run concurrently. Two different accused had died whereas the Uttar Pradesh authorities's attraction was pending.
Prosecutors mentioned Kumar killed his 23-year-old spouse Kusuma Devi on August 6, 1982, after being caught in a bootleg relationship along with his youthful brother's spouse. Kumar, then 28, together with Prasad and two others, pinned Kusuma down and throttled her, claiming they had been exorcising a ghost. Witnesses mentioned her physique was cremated the identical evening to hide the crime.

Calling the killing “a traditional case of blind religion”, the court docket mentioned:

“Such unlucky realities are nonetheless prevalent in distant areas in numerous cultures based mostly on superstition and perception, simply to convey success and to appease the gods. This shocks the conscience of civilized society and is to be condemned by every body, to curb such social evils.”

Awadhesh Kumar and Mata Prasad have been ordered to give up inside two weeks. The court docket additionally fined every Rs 20,000 for homicide and Rs 5,000 for destroying proof.