A day after pronouncing, dismissed UT police constable Basant Kumar alias Bunty and his accomplice Sarita, who is eight-month pregnant, guilty of murdering a UT police Inspector Sucha Singh, the fast-track court here on Wednesday handed them life imprisonment for the crime.
The accused were sentenced with life imprisonment in the fast-track court of Justice SK Aggarwal in record time duration of around 3.5 months. Speaking in his defense in the court, Bunty appealed for mercy and requested that he should not be charged with life imprisonment as he is innocent, while Sarita stood silent during the announcement of quatum of sentence.
The duo was convicted under IPC sections-302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder) 332 (voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty), 333 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt to deter public servant from his duty), 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) and 397 (robbery or dacoity).
They had also been held guilty under different sections of 25, 54 and 59 of the Arms Act. Earlier, in the last hearing, about 43 prosecutions and witnesses’ along with 10 defense witnesses were heard in the case and as many as 46 attachments of different evidences with the case file were produced by the prosecution.
Charge-sheet was filed in the case by the police on August 27 while charges against them were framed on September 17. Basant, along with his girlfriend Sarita, was on the run ever since he had killed Sarita’s husband and mother-in-law on April 18 in Sonipat. The couple was on way to catch a bus from Sector 17 on the night of June 7, when confronted by inspector Sucha Singh and home guards volunteer Jatinder Singh, who were on night patrolling. Basant attacked Sucha after the officials asked them to accompany them to the police station for verification.