Indore (Madhya Pradesh): In a shocking case that exposed a meticulously planned attempt to disguise a murder as a snakebite death, an Indore court has sentenced a 43-year-old man to life imprisonment for killing his wife and trying to pass it off as suicide or an accidental snakebite.
The court of Additional Sessions Judge Hemalb Kumar Raghuvanshi found Amitesh alias Shalu Pataria, a resident of Sanchar Nagar Extension, guilty of murdering his wife Shivani in December 2019. Along with life imprisonment, the court also imposed a fine on the convict.
According to the prosecution, the incident took place on December 1, 2019, at the couple's residence on Kanadia Road.
Investigators revealed that the accused first took the couple's two children, then aged nine and five, out of the house. He later smothered Shivani to death while she was lying on a bed.
To conceal the crime, the accused had allegedly purchased a cobra from a snake charmer and used it to bite the victim's body, hoping the death would be attributed to a snakebite.
He subsequently killed the snake and took his wife to a hospital, claiming she had died after being bitten by it.
However, the post-mortem examination exposed the truth. Doctors found that Shivani had died due to suffocation and not because of snake venom.
During the investigation, police also discovered that the accused had searched online for ways to make a murder appear accidental. Evidence showed he had purchased and kept the cobra for several days before the crime.
The court acquitted the accused's father and sister, citing lack of evidence, while holding the husband solely responsible for the murder.
