Husband gets life term in Anad Sunitha murder case

Thiruvananthapuram: The sixth additional district sessions court judge K Vishnu has sentenced the accused in Anad Sunitha murder case to life imprisonment and also imposed a fine of Rs 60,000.
In default of the payment, the accused has to undergo an additional jail term for one year. For destroying evidence, the court also imposed a five-year jail term for the accused as well. The sentences shall go concurrently, said the court on Tuesday.
Sunitha (35) of Jeena Bhavan at Thavalottukonam near Venkavila in Anad was murdered on August 3, 2013, by her husband Joy (43) alias Joy Antony. He hit her on the head with a shovel. After she fell unconscious, he set her on fire. To destroy evidence, the accused later cut her body into pieces and dumped them in a septic tank.
Additional public prosecutor M Salahuddin pleaded at the court to provide capital punishment to the accused by considering it as the rarest of the rare crime. However, the court was not willing to accept it. In the absence of eyewitnesses, the scientific evidence and the statements of experts turned crucial in the case. The forensic experts, who conducted the postmortem, found that Sunitha was conscious while she was set ablaze by Joy. During investigation, her body parts were recovered from the septic tank on August 17.