A scandalous incident has come to the fore, embarrassing relations from Mayanagari Mumbai. A man first strangled his wife and the next day killed his own two-and-a-half-year-old innocent son by drowning him in a drain. To hide this horrific crime, the accused fabricated a false story of missing wife and son before the police. But, after 10 years on the basis of the testimony of an auto driver, postmortem report and circumstantial evidence, the killer has been unmasked. The Dindoshi Sessions Court sentenced the accused father Laxman Lingappa Gorala alias Kotakurva alias Dhanagar to life imprisonment for murder and destruction of evidence.
Suspicion and murder of wife
The incident took place on August 6, 2016. According to the prosecution, that evening Lakshman had an argument with his second wife Parvati. The reason for the quarrel was the suspicion of the accused regarding the alleged illicit relations of the wife. Parvati denied the accusations, but the feud between the two escalated. Enraged, Lakshman first beat Parvati and then strangled her to death. The accused then took the dead body of the wife out of the house and disposed of it. But he did not know that an eyewitness present in the house would convey the real truth to the court.
The third wife became an important witness
The testimony of Ashamma, the third wife of the accused, was very important in this case. Ashamma told the court that she saw Laxman beating and killing Parvati with her own eyes. That is, the charge of wife-murder was not only circumstantial, but a crucial eye-witness testimony was also available against the accused.
At 6 in the morning Masoom left with his son
The day after his wife’s murder, i.e. 7 August 2016, around 6 am, Laxman left home with his two-and-a-half-year-old son Akhil. At that time the child was sleeping. Asked by Ashamma, he said that he was taking the child to a place where he would be taken care of. But after two hours Lakshman came back alone. When asked about the son, he said that he had killed Aqeel by drowning him in a watercourse.
Attempt to mislead the police
After the murder, the accused went to the police station along with his third wife Ashamma and filed a missing complaint of his wife Parvati and son Akhil. But his story did not last long as the police investigation progressed. On 8 August 2016, police found the body of a child, later identified as Akil, from a drain in Juhu area.
Auto driver and medical report unravel the mystery
Deepak Shigavan, a retired auto rickshaw driver, testified in court that he saw Laxman on the morning of August 7 carrying a crying child on his shoulder towards the drain. Apart from this, the post-mortem doctor also confirmed that the child died due to drowning. The court found the accused guilty by combining all the evidence and circumstantial links.
Court judgment came after 10 years
The Dindoshi Sessions Court considered the case extremely serious, but as it did not fall in the ‘rarest of rare’ category, awarded life imprisonment instead of death. Life imprisonment under IPC 302 and Rs. 1,000 and 3 years rigorous imprisonment under IPC 201 and Rs. 500 has been fined. The accused has earlier been convicted in another case of wife murder and both sentences will run concurrently.