Lower court's order of life sentence upheld

The Madras High Court bench here today upheld the lower court's conviction and sentence to life term awarded to two men for murdering an 18-year-old girl at Maraneri near Sivakasi in 2004.
A division bench comprising Justices S Rajeswaran and T Mathivanan dismissed the appeal filed by Amirtharaj and Raja Mohammed, challenging the Srivilliputhur Principal District and Sessions Judge's judgement on February 21,2008.
The trial court had held the petitioners guilty of murdering the girl and had awarded the life term.
Prosecution case was that the girl frequently visited Mohammed's tailoring shop as his wife was her friend. The girl was last seen going to Raja's shop on March 28, 2004 at around 6 p.M. She was found dead the next day.

Additional public prosecutor R Ramachandran claimed that Raja and Amirtharaj demanded gold jewels from the girl to develop their business.
They strangled her to death with a bicycle chain when she refused to meet their demand and then set her ablaze.

He further claimed that the police recovered the girl's jewels from the accused, who also issued confessional statements admitting their guilt.
Senior counsel S Ashok Kumar, who appeared on behalf of the petitioners, pointed out that the post-mortem report indicated that the girl had died of poisoning and not because of strangulation. The circumstances "were not clinching enough" to prove the guilt of the accused, he contended.

The judges pointed out that the accused had confessed that they had given poison tablets to the girl before strangling her. The tranquiliser detected in her body was because the chemical was present in the tablets.
The Judges held that the chain with which the girl was strangled belonged to Raja's bicycle. There was sufficient evidence to hold the accused guilty, the judges ruled while dismissing their appeal.