Pune: A Baramati sessions court convicted and sentenced Mayur Gorakh Gaikwad, a casual worker from Yavat, to life imprisonment for murdering his wife, Pramila, on Jan 18, 2014, and attempting to pass it off as suicide, holding that the death was not a case of hanging but “a case of throttling or ligature strangulation”. Additional sessions judge SR Patil held the accused guilty of offences under sections 302 (m) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) of the Indian Penal Code. The court acquitted the other accused for want of sufficient evidence. According to the case put forth by additional public prosecutor DS Shingade, the accused informed the Yavat police that his wife had hanged herself from an iron roof angle using a saree. The police then registered an accidental death case. The following day, the victim’s brother lodged a complaint alleging that his sister, married to the accused in 2009, was being subjected to physical assault because of a domestic dispute. Based on his complaint, the police registered a case of murder and destruction of evidence. The defence claimed suicide and false implication, arguing absence of direct evidence. The court found that the accused failed to explain how his wife suffered fatal compression injuries to her neck while alone with him in the house. The court also noted that he offered no explanation for abrasions found on his own chest during medical examination.The court referred to a non-cognisable complaint lodged by the deceased on Dec 26, 2013, alleging assault by the accused. It observed, “The suggestions given by the defence to the prosecution witnesses regarding suspicion about the character of the deceased also show that there were strained relations between the accused number one (husband) and the deceased.”The judge cited evidence on record to conclude that the victim’s death was neither natural nor suicidal but was a homicidal death. “The medical evidence on record shows that the cause of death of Pramila is throttling. No other circumstance has been brought on record to raise doubt about involvement of accused in the commission of murder of Pramila. The material placed by the prosecution on record is sufficient to prove that the accused committed the murder of Pramila,” the court held.
