78-year-old Retired Army Doctor gets life imprisonment for killing wife, chopping her body into 300 pieces
Bhubaneswar: In a case of a brutal murder, a 78-year-old retired Army doctor has been sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering his wife and destroying evidence. The deceased woman's body was found chopped into 300 pieces, and kept in separate 22 steel containers in the couple's house.
The doctor was accused of hitting his wife's head with a blunt object then hacking her body into six-inch pieces using a surgeon's scalpel, scissor, saw and a kitchen knife and stashing the body parts in 22 small containers at his posh residence in Bhubaneswar. He had poured phenyl on the body parts to kill the stench.
The court, after taking cognizance of the submissions and evidence, convicted the doctor for the murder based on circumstantial evidence as there were no eyewitnesses.
The incident reportedly took place in June 2013 which had come to light after almost a fortnight following the couple's daughter, who stays abroad, raised suspicion as she failed to talk to her mother over the phone. Though she insisted to talk to her mother, her father did not give her the phone, the government pleader, submitted before the bench.
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The daughter later sent a relative to the house in IRC village area to enquire. His suspicions were aroused by the accused doctor's furtive actions and the foul smell emanating from the house. The relative then informed the police after suspecting that the woman could have been murdered. Later the police found the body, chopped into 300 pieces, and kept in separate steel containers. The police had also seized a chopper, a knife and two cutters from the spot. The woman was hit on the head with a blunt object.
Following his arrest on June 21, the police had conducted a polygraph test on the doctor and filed a charge-sheet in court in October.
"Even after murdering his wife, he continued to attend a clinic in a private hospital. During the trial he kept on denying the killing, maintaining that his wife committed suicide and he had stored the body parts to carry them to Shirdi where the last rites would have been conducted," they said in the charge sheet; reports HT
Since his arrest, he had been kept in the Jharpada Special Jail.
During a recent hearing on the case, the public prosecutor said the murder had been the result of prolonged bitterness between the couple. The accused was not on talking terms with his daughter and the wife talked to their daughter on the phone regularly which allegedly had angered the doctor. She had insisted on letting her visit the Bhubaneswar house. Matters between the couple soured further and he was believed to have killed her in a fit of rage, stated the prosecutor, quotes TOI.
"I am innocent and did not kill my wife," he said outside the court while being taken to judicial custody.
The doctor had worked as a consultant with several organisations, including the World Health Organization (WHO), after his retirement in 1992.
