Bathinda court awards death to IAF Sergeant

Saurabh Malik
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, March 15

Two years after he kidnapped and murdered an Airman, chopping his body into 100 parts and stuffing these into polythene bags, a Bathinda court today awarded the death sentence to IAF Sergeant Sailesh Kumar. 

“To be hanged by the neck till he is dead,” Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Kanwaljit Singh Bajwa pronounced the sentence. Sergeant Kumar’s wife Anuradha Patel, eight months’ pregnant at the time of the murder, was sentenced to five years’ rigorous imprisonment for destruction of evidence.

The ASJ observed the accused, a member of the armed forces, should have shown courage in some other field, “in place of butchery”. He said: “It would be a mockery of justice and the conscience of society would be shocked, if death penalty was not awarded to him as his act was abhorrent and dastardly.

“This is surely a case which falls within the category of rarest of rare cases.” 

According to the prosecution, the victim’s wife told the police that Vipin left house at the Bhissiana Airbase on February 8, 2017, but did not return. She and her father-in-law embarked upon a search. On February 21, they overheard two youngsters saying stench was emanating from the Sergeant’s residential quarters and informed the police. 

Evidence regarding the motive behind the murder was, however, not placed before the court.

CRIME MOST FOUL  

Sergeant Sailesh Kumar kidnapped and murdered an Airman, chopped his body and stuffed parts into bags