Mumbai: A sessions court awarded life imprisonment to a 32-year-old man and his elder sister for strangulating the man’s pregnant wife in 2018. It was a love marriage which took place a year before the incident. The father of the deceased, Babita, had filed a complaint at the Shahu Nagar police station against Rajesh Boda and his sister Sulochana Badgery, 36, residents of Matunga. The father alleged that her daughter was killed for dowry. The siblings had been in prison for the past five years since their arrest. The father of the convicts was acquitted.
No evidence of death being connected to dowry
However, the court did not find evidence of the death being connected to dowry. Instead, it labelled it as a case of ill-treatment at the hands of the husband and sister-in-law. During the trial, the parents of the victim and her aunt appeared as witnesses. They told the court that since their daughter had married against their wishes, no dowry was given and that her in-laws would torture her on this account. They underlined that they were not in a financial position to afford dowry. In her testimony, Babita's mother told the court that her daughter would tell her about the ill-treatment meted out to her.
Whereas, the father testified about the daughter showing a burn injury on her leg, which was inflicted by Badgery and said that the incident took place eight days after Babita accompanied by her mother lodged a non-cognisable complaint against her in-laws.
Duo was present at home during the incident
The court considered the evidence of cloth fibres of the deceased being found on the clothes of the convicts. The father-in-law was acquitted as he was not present at home at the time of the incident. The accused had taken the defence that Babita died by suicide. The court did not accept this version and pointed out that from injuries she suffered, it's not a case of hanging, but of strangulation and that the duo was present at home during the incident.
It further stated that no evidence was brought on record to show that just before her death, Babita was subjected to cruelty in connection with dowry.
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