‘Double’ murder of wife, unborn child; life sentence to husband

S Shyam Prasad | NT

Bengaluru: A division bench of the High Court of Karnataka, comprising Justice B Veerappa and Justice JM Khazi, has upheld the life sentence of Kubera Singh, who was convicted by a trial court for the murder of his wife and also their unborn child.

“The accused not only murdered his wife but also caused the death of a male fetus in the womb of the deceased at the same time; thereby, he has committed the heinous crime of double murder,” the HC said, confirming his conviction.

Though the entire case was based on circumstantial evidence, the HC said the case was proved beyond a reasonable doubt. “It is well settled that in the case of circumstantial evidence, five principles—the panchasheela—have to be established by the prosecution beyond a reasonable doubt.”

“On re-assessment of the entire oral and documentary evidence on record, this court is of the considered opinion that from the beginning till the completion of the investigation, all five circumstances have been proved by the prosecution beyond a reasonable doubt,” the HC said.

Kubera Singh married Madhu in 2014. He took her from home at 4 a.m. on April 23, 2015, to visit a temple. On the other hand, he led her to a railroad track near the Shivamogga Railway Station. He strangled her with a rope and dumped her body on the tracks. He informed her sister that she was missing.

The body was found on the tracks later. A note on her said, “I love some other person, and I am going with him.” Singh had, however, left behind clues for the police. He had called the station master of the railway station at 4.42 a.m. to confirm whether the Talaguppa train was on time at 5 a.m.

The railway officer was one of the witnesses in the case. Singh had made calls from the scene of the crime at 5 a.m. The call records showed this. But he was unable to explain why he was there then. The note was also in his handwriting. The postmortem showed that Madhu was three months pregnant when she was murdered.

The four circumstances the trial court relied on for convicting Singh were found to be correct by the high court. They were, firstly, the alleged letter, which was in the handwriting of the accused. Secondly, the call details showed Singh was near the scene of the incident. Third, Madhu’s death was proven homicidal; fourth, the accused’s “post-incident conduct.”

“Based on the oral and documentary evidence on record, the prosecution established beyond reasonable doubt that the accused committed the murder of his wife and as a result also caused the death of a male foetus, thereby the accused has committed the heinous crime,” the HC said in dismissing Singh’s petition and upholding his rigorous imprisonment for life.

Upholding the sentence, the HC said, “The accused was present at the scene of the crime at the relevant point in time, and the alleged letter said to be written by the deceased proved to be so as it is in the handwriting of the accused.”

This depicts the malicious intention of the accused to mislead the investigation after committing the murder. Given the above, this court is of the opinion that the trial court has rightly passed the impugned judgment of conviction and order of sentence.”