Lifer upheld for man who killed wife on witchcraft suspicion

The Bombay High Court has upheld life sentence awarded to a 35-year-old man, resident of neighbouring Raigad district, who killed his wife on the suspicion that she was practising black magic on him.
Division bench of V K Tahilramani and P D Kode rejected the argument of the defence lawyers that Sudhakar Uthekar, the convict, bashed his wife's head with a stone during a spell of lunacy.
The High Court, in the ruling on his appeal last month, noted that prosecution witnesses had not found the convict to be a lunatic at the time of the crime, and he had not taken this defence during the trial.

The court accepted the confession made by the convict to his brother-in-law that he had killed his wife. There were no witnesses to the crime, but HC noted that police had recovered the blood-smeared stone with which Uthekar had hit his wife.
Uthekar lived with wife Archana and sons Sujit and Ajit at Boravale in Poladpur tehsil. He often fell sick, and had quarrels with Archana suspecting that she was subjecting him to some kind of witchcraft.
On May 8, 2003, he had a stomach pain while at his sister's house and blamed Archana for it. His brother-in-law intervened to pacify him.

The next day, according to the prosecution, he went back to his sister's house in the neighbouring village and said that he had killed Archana early morning when she was out to attend nature's call.
His broher-in-law went to the spot with Uthekar and found Archana lying in a pool of blood. Following his arrest, Alibag Sessions court found him guilty and had awarded him life sentence.