HC upholds life sentence of 4 in student murder case

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court has upheld the life sentence of four persons, including two women from Mumbai, involved in the murder of an engineering student from Bihar in Bengaluru in 2011. Justice B Veerappa and Justice KS Hemalekha in their judgment upheld the sentence imposed by the trial court in 2014.

The four convicted persons are Rohith Kumar from Jharkhand, Shivani Takur and Preethi Raj from Mumbai and Warish from Bihar. Shivani is the wife of Rohith and Preethi is her cousin. Both worked as bar girls. The deceased was Thushar Mehta who was reported missing on January 13, 2011. He was a student of Sri Krishna Institute of Technology.

The murder was committed as Thushar refused to give loan of Rs.5,000 to his friend Warish. Warish along with his accomplices hatched the plan to kidnap Thushar and demand ransom from his parents. Shivani invited Thushar to meet him at the Esteem Mall at Hebbal. Preeti was also present. Thushar had taken another friend Ayushmanlal with him.

After dinner, Shivani invited Thushar home but did not want Ayushmanlal to accompany them. Thushar went alone with the two girls. While partying at Shivani’s home, Warish and Rohith confronted him. Thushar was strangled and his dead body dumped in an empty plot. The accused then called Thushar’s father Pramod Mehta for a ransom of Rs.10 lakh. Mehta came to Bengaluru to lodge a complaint.

Rohith was caught at the Railway station trying to collect the ransom amount from Mehta. He confessed to his crime and led to the arrest of the other three. After a three-yeartrial, the fast track Court XV sentenced all four accused to life imprisonment and a fine of Rs.5,000 each for murder, one year imprisonment each for criminal conspiracy and two months imprisonment each for causing disappearance of evidence. The four challenged this in the HC.

Confirming the conviction and sentence, the HC said, “In the present case, there are abundant materials for conviction of the accused. Last seen theory of deceased with Accused Nos.3 and 4 (Shivani and Preethi) is proved. The accused have committed the murder of the deceased with an intention to make unlawful gain and motive for murder is proved”.

“The body of the deceased was recovered at the instance of Accused Nos.1 and 2 (Warish and Rohith). Blood stained clothes of Accused Nos.1 and 2 were seized in the house of Accused No.2 by the Investigating Officer”, it added.

Dismissing the appeals filed by the four convicts, the HC said, “Based on the medical evidence, scientific evidence and other oral and documentary evidence, the impugned judgment of conviction has been passed and not on the moral basis or on suspicion alone.”

The HC also rejected arguments of lapses in investigation. “In the present case, no such lapses or irregularities pointed out in the investigation and based on the abundant material on record, the impugned judgment of conviction has been passed.”