Indore (Madhya Pradesh): An Indore district court has sentenced Amitesh alias Shalu Pateria to life imprisonment for the 2019 murder of his wife, Shivani Pateria on Tuesday.
The court found that the bank officer had planned the killing and tried to mislead investigators by making it appear as a snakebite death.
According to the prosecution, Amitesh brought a black desert cobra from Alwar, Rajasthan, for around ₹30k and kept it hidden at home for 11 days.
When he got the opportunity, he allegedly strangled his wife with a pillow and later placed the snake’s bite marks on her hand to create the impression that she had died due to a snake attack.
The conspiracy was uncovered after the postmortem report and forensic investigation revealed that Shivani had not died from a snakebite.
Medical experts and other evidence presented in court helped establish the sequence of events.
The incident took place on Dec 1, 2019, at the couple’s residence in Indore’s Sanchar Nagar area.
Amitesh and a tenant initially took Shivani to MY Hospital, claiming that she had suffered a snakebite. However, her family raised doubts over the circumstances of her death.
Police found a dead cobra at the house, but further investigation revealed inconsistencies in the snakebite theory.
Shivani’s family had alleged that marital disputes and Amitesh’s relationship with another woman were behind the crime.
After nearly six-and-a-half years of trial, the court convicted Amitesh of murder and awarded him life imprisonment.
He was also sentenced to three years in jail and fined ₹25,000 for killing the cobra, along with an additional two-year sentence for destroying evidence.
