A local court today handed down life imprisonment to a software engineer from Delhi who murdered his wife in cold blood seven years ago and kept her body in a deep freezer for months after chopping it into pieces.
Additional District and Sessions Judge Vinod Kumar had convicted Rajesh Gulati yesterday under sections 302 (murder) and 201 (concealing evidence) of the IPC for murdering his wife Anupama.
The judge, while pronouncing the quantum of punishment in a packed courtroom, sentenced him to life in prison, besides imposing upon a fine of Rs 15 lakh, District Prosecution Counsel D P Raturi said.
Out of the total fine ofRs 15 lakh, Rs 14.3 lakh will be invested in a fixed deposit to meet the educational expenses of his minor children from his murdered spouse.
The remaining Rs 70, 000 will be deposited in the state exchequer, Raturi said.
Before the sentence was pronounced, the prosecution pleaded that the case be treated as the rarest of rare and Gulati be handed down the harshest punishment which should send a message to society.
However, Gulati's lawyers pleaded that he should not be given death sentence, a provision which had been done away with by as many as 139 countries across the world.
Moreover, the convict's conduct was "good" during the last seven years in prison while the trial was on, they said in the course of their argument in the court.
Joint Director (law) J S Bisht said the arguments in the case were concluded on August 18 and the verdict was based on the examination of around 40 witnesses during the prolonged trial.
The sensational murder had come to light on December 11, 2010 about two months after it was committed when Anupama's brother went to enquire about her at the couple's residence in Prakash Nagar colony in Cantt area after failing to talk to her for many days.
When Gulati resisted his entry into the house and refused to tell him anything about Anupama's whereabouts, he reported the matter to the police.
Gulati even tried to mislead the police by feigning ignorance about Anupama's whereaboutsbut when they found a deep freezer kept under locks in the house their suspicion deepened.
When it was unlocked, some pieces of Anupama's body were recovered.
It also came to light that Gulati hadthrown some pieces of her corpse into a drain on Mussoorie road after packing them into polythin bags.
According to the prosecution, the couple often had altercations over an alleged extramarital relationship of Gulati.
During one such fight between them on October 17, 2010, Anupama fell unconscious after hitting her head against the bed.
Rajesh then throttled her to death with the help of a pillow.
The next day Rajesh bought a deep freezer and hid her body after chopping it. Later he kept throwing the pieces into a drain on Mussoorie road.
However the matter came to light before he could dispose of the chopped pieces of his wife's body completely.
When his two children enquired about their mother, Rajesh told them that she had gone to their granny's place in Delhi.
Originally from Delhi, Rajesh Gulati had shifted to Dehradun in 2008.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)