Man escapes US jail ‘due to Hindu culture’

 Houston, August 31

A 46-year-old Indian-origin man in the US who stabbed his “overweight” wife twice in the abdomen has been spared a prison sentence because the judge agreed that his family would face “ostracism” as part of their Hindu culture.

Navinkumar Patel, from Kansas City, stabbed his wife with a pocketknife as she ate a bowl of cereal, and subsequently told the police he had done it because his wife was “overweight”.

The cultural considerations weighed into his sentencing decision for Patel, Douglas County District Judge Robert Fairchild was quoted as saying by the local newspaper LJWorld.

Patel was arrested in June 2015 after he stabbed his wife at Lawrence’s Super 8 Motel, which he owns. He pleaded ‘no contest’ to felony charges of attempted second-degree murder and criminal threat in March.

Patel’s attorney John Kerns told the judge that in the Hindu culture of Patel’s family, his wife and children would suffer if he were sentenced to prison. They would essentially be “ostracised”, he said. “The cultural part of it is very significant in this case,” Judge Fairchild said. —  PTI