Rajkot cop gets 25 years in jail for couple’s murder

Rajkot: A suspended police constable was sentenced to 25 years rigorous imprisonment on Friday for murder of an elderly couple six years ago.
The Rajkot sessions judge D D Thakkar awarded the jail term to Kamlesh Mehta (35) for stabbing Bhupat Teraiya (55) and his wife Gunvanti Teraiya (54) to death in Punit Nagar of Bajarangwadi locality on Jamnagar Road in Rajkot in the evening of April 7, 2014.
The court observed that a policeman is supposed to protect the citizens. But if the cop himself becomes becomes perpetrator the court cannot take a lenient view in the case. Judge Thakkar ordered that there won’t be any review of Mehta’s sentence by the government and he will have to serve his full 25 years in jail.
In most cases, the state government periodically reviews the conduct of those convicted in serious offences and alters the sentence based on it.
According to case details, Mehta’s mother used to pick up fights with the Teraiya couple for sitting near her house. On the evening of the crime, after she had a fight with the Teraiya couple, Mehta’s mother called up her son who was on duty at the Rajkot B Division police station.
“Mehta who was 29 and unmarried then, rushed to his house. He straight away went inside the house and came out with a knife and stabbed Bhupat, when his wife intervened, Mehta stabbed her also. The couple died on the spot,” said Ruprajsinh Parmar, special public prosecutor in the case.
“After the crime, Mehta went in search of the Teraiya couple’s son with the intention to kill him. However, the police came to know about the crime and nabbed Mehta from Jamnagar Road,” added Parmar.
Parmar said that of the three initial eye witnesses, one of them testified against Mehta. “We had sought capital punishment for Mehta, terming the case as the rarest of the rare as the accused was a police constable and he had committed the crime while on duty. Mehta’s uniform had blood stains from the incident,” he said, adding that the court had examined 26 witnesses and took under consideration 50 documentary evidences to reach the verdict.