The Karnataka High Court on Wednesday confirmed the death penalty imposed by a trial court in Mangaluru on K. Mohan Kumar, 50, a native of Bantwal taluk in Dakhina Kannada district, for murdering 32-year-old Sunanda, in Mysuru in 2008 by making her drink a beverage mixed with cyanide.
A Division Bench comprising Justice Ravi Malimath and Justice John Michael Cunha delivered the verdict while confirming the District and Sessions Court’s December 21, 2013, verdict.
While the bench upheld Kumar’s conviction on the charges of robbery, it acquitted him from charges of rape due to lack of evidence.
However, the bench held that it is a “rarest of rare” cases as the convict habituated in murdering women by taking them to different places on the promise of a job and murdering them at bus stands by making them drink beverage mixed with cyanide.
The High Court on October 12, 2017, had sentenced Kumar to imprisonment for life without remission in the case of murdering one Anita, a native of Bantwal in 2009, and on October 24, 2017, the High Court had sentenced him to five years rigorous imprisonment for robbery as he had escaped with jewellery of one Leelavathi, who was found dead at the KSRTC bus stand in Mysuru.
In both these cases, the High Court had rejected the death penalty imposed by the trial court.
In all the three cases, Kumar, who is called ‘Cyanide’ Mohan by the police, had personally argued his case though initially he had engaged lawyers for filling appeals against the verdict of the Mangaluru court.
Additional State Public Prosecutor Vijayakumar Majage had urged for confirming death penalty, pointing out that the convict was involved in a series of killings with 20 cases — of murdering gullible women by using cyanide — against the convict, as the High Court had already sentenced him to life imprisonment.
In the case of Anita’s murder, the Bench said Kumar became a menace to society and a threat to womenfolk, particularly unmarried women, as he took to criminal activities after applying for voluntary retirement from a respectable job of a schoolteacher.
HC clears all death penalty cases
The Karnataka High Court on Wednesday cleared all the 25 cases, which were sent by the trial court for confirmation of death penalty imposed on convicts, pending for adjudication since 2010, with confirmation of death penalty for Mohan Kumar.
The Division Bench comprising Justice Ravi Malimath and Justice John Michael Cunha, which regularly took up the death penalty cases for hearing since June 2017, has confirmed death penalty in only three of the 25 cases.
While two cases of death penalty were remanded back to the trial courts, in the remaining 20 cases either the sentences were reduced to life imprisonment or lesser period, or the accused were acquitted, said Additional State Public Prosecutor Vijayakumar Majage, while pointing out that 37 appeals filed by the convicts, who were sentenced to death, were also disposed of along with the 25 cases of death penalty.