Ghaziabad: A special SC/ST court has sentenced a barber to double life imprisonment for attacking and killing a neighbour using scissors. The court found the accused guilty of murder and also aware of the fact that the victim belonged to the SC community. Hence, he was sentenced to life under the provisions of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act too.The case stems from a complaint filed at Sahibabad police station by Rajkumari on Nov 8, 2018. She told the cops that her husband Sanjay had been stabbed by their neighbour Pradeep, who is a barber, around 4pm that day. She alleged that Pradeep had come to their house that afternoon and asked Sanjay to return the money that he had borrowed from the barber. They soon had a heated argument and Pradeep stabbed Sanjay with a pair of scissors in his chest. She said her children Sonu and Nisha had witnessed the crime. The family then rushed him to the hospital, but he died on the way.A case was registered against the barber under IPC Section 302 (murder), and after an investigation, police included Section 3(2)(v) of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. A chargesheet was filed on Dec 18 that year. The court took cognisance of the matter, and a special SC/ST court framed charges against the accused on Jan 11 the next year. The accused denied the charges and sought a trial, following which the prosecution presented 10 witnesses, including family members and an eyewitness neighbour.Sonu supported his mother Rajkumari’s statement during the main examination, but they turned hostile during cross-examination three years later. Special public prosecutor Akhilesh Kumar argued that their evidence could not be dismissed entirely.Despite backtracking in court, Rajkumari admitted that her husband had been stabbed with scissors. Police recovered the weapon, covered in human blood, from Pradeep’s possession. A medical examination indicated that the bloodstains on the scissors were as old as the incident.Defence counsel argued that witnesses did not support the prosecution’s case. The scissors found in Pradeep’s possession had been planted, and the forensic laboratory did not match the DNA of the blood on the scissors to Sanjay’s DNA.The court, however, said witness Amit Bharti — a neighbour — had supported the prosecution’s case. “He saw the accused near the body at the scene of the crime and stuck to the statement that Sanjay had been killed after being attacked with a pair of scissors by Pradeep. He did not exaggerate any fact,” the court ruled and held Pradeep guilty.Additional sessions judge Jitendra Mishra said the gravity or brutality of a crime, or its impact on society, does not by itself warrant the death penalty. He said capital punishment is justified only when life imprisonment is conclusively ruled out after considering all relevant circumstances.“Categorising a case as ‘rarest of rare’ without a comprehensive assessment of the crime, the convict’s specific role and mitigating circumstances would not be justified,” the judge said, sentencing the convict to life imprisonment and a fine of Rs 10,000 under Section 302 of the IPC.On the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, the judge said the prosecution had established that the accused knew the deceased’s caste. The FIR stated that the accused lived opposite the deceased’s house, while prosecution witnesses described him as a friend of the deceased.Referring to Section 8(c) of the Act and the 2016 amendment, the judge said knowledge of the victim’s caste was sufficient and the prosecution did not need to establish that the crime was motivated by caste. He held the offence under Section 3(2)(v) of the Act proven and sentenced the convict to life imprisonment with a fine of Rs 5,000.
