HC upholds Pune man's death penalty for killing wife, mother, daughter

The Bombay High Court on Tuesday upheld the death sentence of Pune-resident Vishwajeet Masalkar for killing his family members including wife and mother in 2012 after they raised objections over his extramarital affair.

A bench of Justices B P Dharmadhikari and Swapna Joshi upheld Masalkar's death sentence handed down by a Pune sessions court in 2016.

Masalkar killed his mother, his wife, and their two-year-old daughter after his family raised objections to his affair with his colleague.

He also severely injured one of his neighbours who was present at his house at the time.

He later called the police saying he had found the dead bodies when he returned home from work.

Masalkar also tried to mislead the police by saying several gold ornaments were robbed from his house.

Police probe revealed this wasn't a case of robbery.

The police also found Masalkar had not told his colleague that he was married. He had also forced her to break off her engagement with another man.

The Pune court held that the case fit the category of "rarest of rare" and awarded him the death sentence.

The HC bench too held that the death penalty was adequate punishment in the case.

The bench said Masalkar had committed "cold blooded murders".

It said he could have simply sought a divorce from his wife instead of resorting to killing three innocent persons.

"The victims were innocent, closely related to the accused depending upon him. So also having trust in him and they have been killed by the accused. The act of killing mother is of extreme ingratitude towards the source of life. Also, the wife would always have trust in her husband and would expect care and security from him. So also is the case with the daughter," the bench said.

"The conduct of the accused clearly indicates that he is unfit to revert in civilised society. The accused may be even dangerous for PW2 (Masalkar's colleague), as she is already married with someone else," the bench said.

The court said, by killing his family, Masalkar had "tried to shatter the basic foundation of the society", and therefore, sentencing him to life imprisonment and not awarding him the maximum punishment of death would not have been "proper".