Man sentenced to life imprisonment for kidnap-murder of woman

A local court today sentenced to life imprisonment a man who was convicted of abduction and murder of a woman in Burma Mines area of East Singhbhum district of Jharkhand in 2007.
District Sessions Judge Satyaprakash Sinha of the Special Court against Women's Atrocities, held Balram Sharma, alias Santosh Kumar Verma, guilty of abduction-murder of Sreemati Devi and sentenced him to life imprisonment under sections 302 and 307 of IPC.
The court also slapped a fine of Rs. 5000, non-payment of which will make him serve additional two months of imprisonment.
All the sentences will run concurrently.
Public Prosecutor, Virendra Kumar Prasad, said an FIR against Sharma had been registered on March 2, 2007 under Burmamines police station in this regard.

Prasad said ten witnesses had been examined in course of the trial but the statement of the victim's then six-year- old daughter Champa Kumari proved crucial.

According to the prosecution, Sharma had assaulted Sreemati Devi brutally after dropping her daughter to school and took the critically injured woman to Tata Main Hospital where he got her admitted on false information that she met with an accident.
Sreemati Devi succumbed to her injuries two days later and the FIR lodged on that day.
The court, which reprimanded the then Investigating Officer for not making the victim's daughter an witness in the case, had granted the prayer of PP to make Champa, now of 14 years age, a witness.