KARACHI: A sessions court on Saturday awarded a life sentence to a man, who had killed his wife and staged it as suicide in 2021.

Additional District and Session Judge (South) Ab­dul Hafeez Lashari, fou­nd Meghraj Anand guilty of killing his wife, Kaanta Kumari by strangling her at his flat at Tauheed Apartment in Lea Market and staging it as suicide.

“The medical evidence produced by the prosecution is supporting the version of the prosecution that the deceased was died due to strangulation and not supporting the version advanced by the accused that the deceased died by committing suicide. Having considering the last seen evidence; photographs of deceased neck and face before her burial, corroborated by the other pieces of evidence, keeping in view the location and place of occurrence, I reached at the conclusion that all the circumstances are interlinked which clearly connect the accused with crime,” the judge said.

Noting the motive of the accused for the murder, the court stated that the accused had an alleged “extramarital affair” with a woman, which created tension with his wife.

Judge finds the accused guilty of strangling his wife in 2021; orders him to pay Rs500,000 to her legal heirs as compensation

The accused forced his wife to interact with a woman — with whom he had an extramarital affair — under the pretence of helping her find a job, which the deceased perceived as evidence of “infidelity”, the court observed, adding that the deceased had expressed the ongoing tension with her family.

The accused had threatened to remarry which caused emotional distress to the deceased, it added. “Three weeks before her death, Meghraj [accused] allegedly tried to suffocate Kaanta with a pillow. She confided in her sister, Dhan Bai, about the incident, indicating a clear intent to harm and a premeditated motive for murder,” the court observed.

It also directed the accused to pay Rs500,000 as compensation to the legal heirs, on default, he would serve additional imprisonment.

According to state prosecutor Shakeel Ahmed Abbasi, the complainant informed the police that his sister had married the accused in 2020 and that they had a six-to-seven-month-old baby girl.

He stated that on June 5, 2021, the accused called him and informed him that his sister had committed suicide by hanging herself by the neck, adding that when the brother of the deceased reached the Civil Hospital, the doctor had announced her death.

He further claimed that the accused told him that his sister had gone to take a shower to the bathroom and when she did not return for long, they forcefully opened the door and found her hanged.

He also stated that the family of the accused complained about the hospital and wanted to shift her sister to a private hospital; however, instead of shifting her to the hospital, they brought her body to their home and after completing the rituals they buried her at the Moach Goth graveyard.

In their statements, the in-laws of the deceased claimed that she (decea­sed) was alive and breathing at that time.

However, the court raised critical questions: “If Kanta (deceased) had already hanged herself, how could she still be breathing and struggling when they found her? The inconsistency lies in the timeline and the physical state of Kanta at the moment of discovery. If she was indeed hanging, the expectation would be that she would not be alive, contradicting the assertion that she was found alive and responsive. This discrepancy could be pivotal in assessing the circumstances surrounding her death and the credibility of the testimonies provided by the defence.”

It noted that no stool, chair or any supportive object was found at the crime scene, which would be necessary for a suicidal hanging.

A case was registered at the Baghdadi police station under Section 302 (murder) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

Published in Dawn, January 6th, 2025