Chandigarh: Woman gets life term for gagging son to death
The convict, Roopa Verma, was also charged with murdering her six-month-old daughter a month prior to killing her son but those charges could not be proved in court
The court of additional sessions judge Harpreet Kaur on Friday sentenced a 29-year-old woman to life imprisonment for gagging her two-and-a-half-year-old son to death.
The convict, Roopa Verma, was also charged with murdering her six-month-old daughter a month prior to killing her son but those charges could not be proved in court. She has been imposed a fine of ₹25,000.
The woman had strained relations with her husband and wanted to teach him a lesson and thus murdered both the children, the prosecution stated. The court relied the judgment on the basis of strong circumstantial evidence, DNA reports and the extra judicial confession of a leader of Muslim community, whom the woman had approached after killing her son.
While pronouncing the verdict, the court said, “The convict has committed murder of her own son by gagging a pair of gloves in his mouth. Mother is the only relation in the world who has been given the divine responsibility of taking care of the child, at least until they are able to fend for themselves. Even animals, who have no sense of law and have limited consciousness, adhere to this holy duty to take care and protect their feeble and defenceless offsprings.”
A gory tale of cold-blooded murders
As per the prosecution, the accused killed her six-month-old daughter on December 21, 2019, and within a month, killed her son on January 25, 2020, by gagging his mouth with a glove.
Dashrath, father of the deceased child, told the police that he had married Roopa in 2016. His son was born in 2017 and daughter in 2019. From the beginning of their marriage, he had strained relations with his wife. Due to her behavior and hatred towards him, he asked to get separated by way of divorce with mutual consent or by her leaving for her parents’ place. However, his wife Roopa did not agree to it and instead told him that as he had “ruined her life after marriage”, she won’t leave him easily. She further told him that she will leave after eliminating him and both his children.
The day of crime
The convict was missing after murdering her son. The next day, her husband lodged a missing complaint about his wife and son at the nearby police post in Sector 45. Subsequently, he received a call from his wife from an unknown number informing him that the son was kept in the bed-box. The boy was rushed to Government Medical College and Hospital, Sector-32, where the doctors declared him brought dead.
The complainant told the police that his wife had first killed his daughter in December 2019 and now killed the son and put the body in the bed of his room.
Police moved an application for exhumation of the daughter’s body whom they buried after finding her dead. The post-mortem was allowed and it revealed strangulation as the cause of death of the daughter.
Extra judicial confession
As per the prosecution version, the accused Roopa had made an extra judicial confession before Sagir Ahmad, who was a leader of the Muslim community. He testified to the court that on January 27, 2020, at about 6.20pm, he was standing near Dev Samaj College, Sector 45, Chandigarh, when the accused came to him and started crying. When he consoled her and inquired about her problem, she disclosed her particulars and that of her husband and further stated that she was married against her wishes.
Charges for killing daughter not proved
While Roopa was found guilty of killing her son, the prosecution could not prove charges against her for killing her daughter and thus the court gave her benefit of doubt.
The court held that no other circumstantial evidence to link the daughter’s murder to the accused has been produced on the record. Thus, the circumstantial evidence adduced by the prosecution falls short of the requirement of law to hold the accused guilty of girl’s murder.