Ex-BPO employee sentenced to jail for entire life in triple murder case

PUNE: A sessions court on Tuesday sentenced a former BPO employee, Sagar M Gaikwad (44), to rigorous imprisonment for the remainder of his natural life for strangulating his wife, mother and daughter to death with a scarf in their sixth floor flat at SLK Heights at Jambhulkar Mala near Fatimanagar on April 8, 2014.

Gaikwad stayed with the bodies throughout the night. On the morning of April 9, he summoned a friend to his society to inform him about his act. Later, they went to the Wanowrie police, where Gaikwad lodged an FIR confessing to the murder and an attempt to suicide. During the trial, he took a defence that the murders were committed by unknown persons after he left his flat and stayed on the building terrace throughout the night to evade a money lender.

Additional sessions judge R N Sardesai convicted Gaikwad for murder and suicide attempt based on evidence, including an extra-judicial confession made to the friend, his conduct prior to the murders, the electronic evidence and deposition by forensic experts, which blew away his defence.

Public prosecutor Rajesh Kavedia, who examined 16 witnesses, told TOI, “Gaikwad’s mother was suffering from an ulcer and used to take a sedative pill. On April 7, 2014, he purchased 15 sedative pills from a chemist friend’s shop. The next day being a public holiday, his wife and daughter were at home. He administered sedatives through lunch food and killed the three women when they were asleep.”

Kavedia said, “As per Indian Evidence Act, the FIR by Gaikwad was admissible only to the extent of his conduct of lodging it. The prosecution had to establish his guilt on the basis of electronic evidence and chemical analyser reports, which showed traces of sedatives in the viscera of the victims.”

He said, “Forensic experts, who analysed a computer CPU seized from his home, deposed that from April 4 to 6, Gaikwad did extensive net search on painless suicide pills, a total of 21 methods of committing suicide, potassium cyanide and downloaded e-books on suicide. Footage from the CCTV cameras at two gates of his society, in the elevator, staircase and basement established that he moved into his flat on April 8, 2014, afternoon, but was not seen thereafter till the next morning, when he came out to meet his friend.”

All these factors led to his conviction.