High Court upholds father’s life sentence for minor girl’s ‘murder’

Soumyadip Mullick, MP, 14 Jan 2025, Kolkata: Observing that the wife’s deposition brought out the terror and trauma of an unfortunate mother who somehow escaped the brutal violence, Calcutta High Court upheld the life sentence of a father who slit the throat of her five-year-old daughter with a scythe in the dead of night after attacking his wife and then attempting suicide. 

The Bench of Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Shampa Dutt (Paul) was moved by the accused (appellant) challenging the life sentence given by the trial court for murder. On the night of June 24, 2010, the accused first attacked his wife who managed to escape to the house of an in-law where she fainted and was later taken to her brother’s place. 

The husband then slit the throat of his daughter with a scythe (katari) and thereafter attempted to slit his own throat but failed. He subsequently surrendered at the police station. 

Most witnesses deposed when they reached the house, they saw the daughter’s body lying in a pool of blood along with a beheaded chicken and some bidis on the spot. All of them concurred that the parents were not in the house. 

The defence counsel claimed none of the local witnesses found the mother at the place of occurrence. Before the magistrate she said she witnessed the incident but later in court said she heard from her brother that her husband murdered her daughter. 

There is no legally admissible evidence to prove the father killed his daughter. The state submitted the child’s body with a cut injury on the throat was recovered from the house. Manner and circumstance in which the appellant slit the throat was corroborated by the autopsy doctor. 

The court observed that the mother’s presence at the residence on the fateful night with the husband and the minor child is most natural. Minor deviations in her evidence from her statement before Magistrate does not erode the crux of her deposition. The court also noted that the forensic report showed blood on the weapon. Death was due to the ante-mortem injury and homicidal in nature. The life sentence was upheld. 

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