Mumbai: Man gets life term for beating ailing 88-year-old mother to death over property

A 50-year-old man has been sentenced to rigorous life imprisonment for brutally beating his octogenarian mother over property. The 88-year-old woman succumbed to head injuries and rib fractures, besides a heart attack.

The convict Santosh Surve’s own sister Angelin and elder brother Prakash Surve had testified in court against him. Another sister Snehalta, who stayed with the mother in the latter’s flat in Goregaon, did not support the case in court.

She had witnessed the assault along with Angelin and had lodged the police complaint in 2016. The death came to light a day after the assault when Snehalata found her mother was not responding when she tried to wake her up. A doctor had pronounced her dead.

Horrific crime comes to light

The man had assaulted his mother by hand on her head, chest, back and arms. The court said referring to the testimony of a doctor who examined the senior citizen, that if we go through the injuries, they are serious in nature and sufficient to cause death of a person aged 88 years.

The court judgement

The court noted in its judgment that the victim was put on artificial oxygen. “The accused had knowledge that a single blow to her would be dangerous and it must in all probability cause death,” Additional Sessions Judge SN Salve stated in the order.

The prosecution had sought the death penalty for Surve. The court said that he is found guilty of committing murder of his mother by assaulting her by hands on various parts of the body, but it is not a gruesome murder indicating his perverse mentality. It considered the facts and circumstances and held that it does not fall under the “rarest of rare” category.