The convict, Nofil Anwar, was held guilty under IPC section 302, and section 25 (1B) (b) of the Arms Act. A Gurgaon court has sentenced a man to life imprisonment till the last breath without any remission or commutation and imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 in a murder case.
The convict, Nofil Anwar, was held guilty under IPC section 302, and section 25 (1B) (b) of the Arms Act.
In an order on Wednesday, Additional Sessions Judge Phalit Sharma observed that the convict in a planned manner brutally stabbed a young man, who was the only son of parents and a breadwinner. Hence, he deserved the maximum punishment that the court could grant.
“If a convict of this kind is awarded simply life imprisonment, he in all probabilities will be released from custody after 14 years or so as per jail manual, but to the mind of this court such culprit is required to be kept behind the bars till the end of his life because if he is released after undergoing life imprisonment in the manner it is counted, it would send a wrong message to the society, particularly the one who had witnessed the brutality of the convict at the relevant time and place that murdering a person that too in a pre-planned brutal manner can see the person out of jail just after few years to enable him to commit the same kind of offence again having no respect and regard to the human life and to the law of the land as such convict did earlier,” the court said.
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The case pertains to the murder of Jugal Kishore, who was employed as a security guard at a private hospital on New Railway Road in Gurgaon. On April 5, 2019, at 5.10 am, Kishore was stabbed multiple times with a knife on the third floor of the hospital. Police arrested Anwar, who was also working as a guard on April 6, 2019, and recovered CCTV footage of the accused entering the hospital in a guard’s uniform at 5.08 am and rushing out at 5.12 am.
The court added, “This court can imagine the plight of the hospital staff particularly the lady and patients in whose presence the stabbing incident took place because for them it must be a horrifying nightmare and also a cause of mental disturbance as the sight of such a cruel incident haunts every normal person… when one starts falling guilty also for being not able to protect a human life, when needed, which presumably be happening in this case with hospital staff who were eyewitnesses to the incident as per CCTV footage but failed to intervene and to depose probably to avoid unwarranted inconvenience a material witness would have faced during the investigation and the trial.”
The court said it is a case which may not be one of the rarest of the rare cases for awarding death sentence within the meaning of law laid down…“but certainly it can also not be a case wherein award of imprisonment for life would serve the purpose.”
One of the main witnesses, a lab staff, had turned hostile in the case. The court said that “though the witness retracted his earlier version given to police about having seen the accused stabbing Jugal Kishore at the relevant time and place but at the same time, the witness categorically stated that when on hearing commotion near ICU Ward, he reached then he saw Nofil Anwar grappling with Jugal Kishore and also that both were guards and Nofil Anwar was carrying a knife”.
“Even if this witness has turned hostile, still this witness could be relied upon in respect of the facts which duly find corroboration from other evidence led by the prosecution…,” the court said.
The court said that the CCTV footage and scientific evidence left no doubt that it was a premeditated plan of the accused.
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