Mumbai Sessions Court Sentences 34-Year-Old Man To Life Imprisonment For Murdering Girlfriend Over Jeans And Social Interactions

Mumbai: The sessions court has convicted a 34-year-old man namely Vinodkumar Harijan for having killed his girlfriend in a hotel room in October 2019 over fights over her wearing jeans and talking to several other people including male friends. The man has been sentenced to life imprisonment based on last seen together theory.

As per the prosecution case, Vinod Kumar and Sandhya Harijan had signed in into the hotel on October 5, 2019 at around 10:30 am. It is claimed that at around 1:30 pm the couple went out and returned at 2 pm.

The hotel manager who is the complainant had claimed that the check-out time for the couple was 7 pm. Since the couple did not come out, the manager went to the room at 7:30 pm to check. When checked, the manager found that Sandhya was lying on the bed motionless with face covered with a towel.

The manager immediately called a lady running a pet care downstairs. When checked the woman had died while Vinod was not around. They immediately informed the police and the murder case was registered at Vakola Police Station.

The police investigation revealed that Vinod had met with an accident within the limits of Sewree Police station whereby he was seriously injured and was admitted at Masina Hospital and then to V.N. Desai Hospital. He was discharged on October 14, 2019 and came to be arrested in this offence.

The public prosecutor Geeta Sharma had examined a total 26 witnesses, primarily to prove that Vinod was last seen with Sandhya. Vinod in his defence claimed that when he left from hotel Sandhya was alive and it was only after he left the place someone would have killed her.

The court however, said intervention by any third person is not made out by the defence.

“According to the theory of last seen together, the circumstances lead to the inevitable conclusion that the accused, having already an adverse motive against Sandhya in his mind, has committed her murder by strangling her by means of a piece of a rope,” the court said.

It further observed that, “the defence has failed to bring on record probability of any circumstance to believe that Sandhya was alive when accused left from there and thereafter some third person has caused any hurt to Sandhya for any purpose. On the contrary, the circumstances as discussed above point out the only conclusion that it was the accused and accused only who committed murder of Sandhya in said room.”

On the motive court relied on the testimony of Sandhya’s close relatives – brother and father and other friends and observed that, “Their testimony go to establish that the accused Vinodkumar was having affair with Sandhya, however, he used to harass her by having suspicion over her and thereby he was not allowing her to talk to anyone as well as put restrictions on her apparel, etc. The testimony has also established that due to such conduct of the accused he also used to assault her and put severe restraints on her with threats. It is established that the family members of Sandhya had tried to convince her to leave accused Vinod, however, Sandhya was quite determined to marry him.”

“The testimonies have revealed that the accused was bearing a grudge against Sandhya’s certain acts like wearing Jeans, Pant, T-shirt, talking to others,” the court said.