Mumbai, July 13: A man who worked as a home nurse in the Khar residence of a senior couple aged 82 and 79, and had tied, assaulted with a pestle and robbed them of over 4 lakhs in 2014, was on Tuesday sentenced by a sessions court to seven years in jail.
Satnam Sachdev had joined work at the home of the senior citizens only 21 days before he committed the act through an agency that provides manpower.
The elderly woman had sustained serious head injuries when he had attacked her with a pestle as she had resisted when he had threatened her to part with her ornaments. He had locked her in the bathroom after removing her jewellery. He had then attacked her husband Hiranchand Jain and tied him to the bed and walked away with the ornaments and cash from the cupboard after locking the home from outside. The elderly man had managed to free himself and called for help from the window and a relative from the neighbouring flat had arrived.
Public Prosecutor Ashwini Raykar said the couple passed away due to natural causes during trial and could not be examined. A prime witness examined, she said, was their relative, who was the first to reach their home after the incident and to whom they had narrated their ordeal. This relative also identified before the court a bangle belonging to the elderly woman which had been recovered from Sachdev.
In 2015, denying the man bail, the court had noted that he had allegedly tied the elderly woman’s hands and legs using a dupatta and confined her in the toilet and tied her husband to the cot using telephone wires.
Sachdev had been traced to Manali in Himachal Pradesh to where he had fled soon after the crime. While half the gold he stole could not be recovered as it had been melted, the police managed to recover the mobile phone of one of the victims from him as well as the bangle during his personal search. As the man has spent considerable time in custody after his arrest, the period will be deducted from his sentence.
