BAREILLY: A local court has sentenced a man, his wife, and his sister to life imprisonment for torturing his 10-year-old daughter to death. Additional district and sessions judge Arvind Kumar Yadav cited the Supreme Court ruling in Nupur Talwar vs State of UP and Anr, 2018, while pronouncing Ravi Babu Sharma, 36, his wife, Ritu Sharma, 34, and Radha Devi, 42, guilty, observing, “In a case based on direct evidence, the prosecution has no need to prove motive.”
The trio killed the girl and buried her body in the courtyard on Aug 20, 2020. The crime was reported the same day by Ritu’s son. Police exhumed the body on Aug 23 and an autopsy confirmed that the girl had not died naturally. She had 15 injuries.
According to additional district govt counsel Sachin Jaiswal, Ritu’s son told the court that the girl used to raise objections when outside men visited the house to meet her stepmother and aunt. On the day of the incident, he received a call from Ravi informing him that their pet dog had died and its body needed to be dumped. When he came home, he found his mother, uncle, and aunt burying the girl’s body in the house.” His uncle told him that the girl had fallen off the bed and died suddenly, but he saw multiple injuries on her body.”
Jaiswal added, “After hearing the arguments, the court found that the victim was tortured and her throat was slit with a knife, which was also recovered from the accused. The court held all three accused guilty and sentenced them to life imprisonment along with a Rs 30,000 fine.”