Bankura (WB): A court here on Wednesday sentenced a man to life imprisonment for the murder of his woman friend whom he had befriended on a social media site and lured her to Madhya Pradesh from her home on the false promise of getting her a job in the USA.
After murdering the woman, her body was put in a trunk and entombed in the compound of the man's house in Bhopal.
Fast Track Court, Bankura, Judge Suresh Biswakarma, who pronounced Udayan Das guilty of murdering Akanksha Sharma (28), sentenced him to life term in prison on Wednesday.
Chief public prosecutor Arun Chatterjee prayed for death sentence to Das claiming that it was a heinous crime and rarest of rare in nature.
"He was convicted in Akansha murder case. Additional Session Judge of Bankura court on Wednesday sentenced him for life. He has been fined Rs 20,000 for murder and a fine of Rs 2,000 for tampering evidence," said Arun Chatterjee, Public Prosecutor of Bankura Court.
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Abhishek Biswas, the lawyer representing Das, said that an appeal will be moved before a higher court challenging the conviction.
The prosecution had submitted before the court during trial that Sharma had left her parental house at Rabindra Sarani here on June 23, 2016 informing her parents that she was going to the USA for a job in an international aid agency.
All about the case:
Akanksha had left her Bankura home on June 23, 2016 following a fake appointment letter given by Das. She went to Das' place at Saket Nagar in Bhopal and realised that the offer letter was fake which led to arguments between her and Udayan.
Police investigation had revealed that on July 15, 2016, Das strangled Sharma to death and entombed her body in a platform in the compound of his house.
It told the court that following the murder, Das used Sharma's mobile and sent messages to her family impersonating her to claim that she was working in the USA, but could not talk to them over phone since she was yet to get a SIM card in that country.
He had also visited her family in Bankura in October 2016.
Suspecting that something was amiss since they could not talk to her for several months and had only received some text messages from her mobile number, Sharma's family members lodged a missing diary at Bankura Sadar police station.
Tracking the location of the mobile phone, the police learnt that it was in Bhopal, following which the woman's father and brother went to the Madhya Pradesh capital, but could not find her.
Shivendra Narayan Sharma, the woman's father, lodged a case of kidnapping against Das on January 5, 2017, following which the Bankura Police went to Bhopal and arrested him on February 1, 2017.
Das confessed to his crime during questioning and Sharma's remains were recovered from a trunk under the tomb in the compound of his residence, Chattopadhyay told the court.
He said that the police filed the chargesheet in the case within 90 days of the arrest and 19 witnesses were examined during the trial.
Das is also accused of murdering his parents in Raipur. He allegedly buried their bodies in the compound of their house thereafter killing them.
Satisfied with the sentence, Sharma's brother Ayush said that they were waiting for the day of judgement, while her parents said that though they wanted death sentence, they felt content as the life sentence would give peace to their daughter's soul.
(Inputs from Agencies)
