Mewat man gets death penalty for killing daughter

Sumedha Sharma

Tribune News Service

Gurgaon, December 10

Mewat Sessions Judge MM Dhonchak sentenced a local butcher to death for killing his seven-year- old daughter to frame the village sarpanch for her murder.

Calling the act rarest of rare, the court pronounced the death penalty saying ‘Undue sympathy to impose inadequate sentence would do more harm to the justice system to undermine the public confidence in the efficiency of law and society could not long endure under such serious threats. The convict, Ikram, a resident of Manota village, had done so to ‘teach’ his village sarpanch Khurshid and other residents a lesson for objecting to the sale of beef in his shop.

The incident dates back to February 2014 when he had a clash with local villagers headed by Khurshid at his house and the former slit the throat of his daughter Saiba leading to her death.

The accused then claimed that some notorious villagers enjoying the patronage of the panchayat had come to his shop asking for meat. Ikram reportedly denied serving them. This infuriated them and they attacked his home.

“They pelted stones at my home, thrashed my family and killed my daughter,” Ikram had told police. The police had then booked the sarpanch and others for the murder of the child.

However, Khurshid insisted that despite a ban on cow slaughter and beef sale in Mewat and panchayat’s decesion to support the same, Ikram and his three brothers were selling it in village.

The sarpanch had complained to the police following which Ikram was booked for cow slaughter. Khurshid claimed that when confronted with the sale of beef, Ikram locked the doors of his house and pelted stones at some villagers who gone to reason with him. They said that he himself killed his daughter to frame them for her murder.

During investigations, the police concluded that Ikram had killed his daughter and he was sent to jail.

In view of the evidence, the court termed the act barbaric as Ikram had killed a child despite being her protector. It also took a note of the agitated behaviour of accused and the fact that he abused the chair.