Murder of 72-yr-old prof for mobilephone: Youth gets life term

Additional Sessions Jugde Narinder Kumar handed down life sentence and Rs 40,000 fine to Mukesh Kumar, 27, a native of Bihar, after finding him guilty of murdering V K Gupta, a professor at Sachdeva P T College here, and committing robbery of his mobile phone in February 2008.

The court gave its verdict on the basis of circumstantial evidence, one of which was that consequent upon of his arrest, Mukesh was found in possession of the mobile phone that he had robbed from the professor's house and the call detail records and the IEMI detail showed that he had been using the phone after the murder.

The judge noted that Mukesh and his accomplice Vinod (declared proclaimed offender) were last seen at the residence of the professor by a neighbour's cook.

Mukesh's refusal to undergo test identification parade also lend credence to his involvement in the murder.

"From the circumstances established on record, this court comes to the conclusion that the prosecution has fully established that it is the accused and another who committed robbery at the house of the professor and also committed murder of the professor and there is nothing on record consistent with the innocence of the accused," the ASJ said.

"It can safely be said that since the professor was living alone, and was an old man, the motive of the accused and his companion was to commit robbery," he said.

The prosecution case was that on February 5, 2008, Nitesh Bhasin, one of the students of professor Gupta, found him murdered at his residence at east Patel Nagar here. (More)