Vadodara (Gujarat), Aug 14 A court in Vadodara district on Friday sentenced a former police inspector to life imprisonment for the 2021 murder of his wife, and handed down a five-year jail term to his accomplice, a local Congress leader.
Additional district judge R S Purani at Karjan also imposed a fine of Rs 2 lakh each on then inspector of Vadodara rural police station, Ajay Desai, and his accomplice Kiritsinh Jadeja.
Jadeja, who had unsuccessfully contested the Karjan Assembly bypoll in 2020 on a Congress ticket, was sentenced to five years in jail.
While Desai is currently in prison, Jadeja is out on bail. The court said that the jail term already served by the accused during the trial shall be set off against their sentences.
Desai was arrested for murder in July 2021, a month-and-half after the half-burnt body of his wife Sweety Patel was found in Karjan.
The victim had divorced her first husband in 2014 and married Desai with whom she had a son.
According to police, he strangled her on the intervening night of June 4 and 5 following a quarrel, then took the body in a four-wheeler to Jadeja's under-construction hotel at Atali village on Dahej highway in neighbouring Bharuch district. They duo tried to burn and dispose of the body in the hotel's backyard.
Around 11:30 am that day, Desai informed Sweety's brother that she had gone missing after they had a fight.
Desai and Jadeja were charged with murder and destruction of evidence, among other offences under the Indian Penal Code.
The case was investigated by the Ahmedabad Crime Branch. Gujarat Anti Terrorism Squad sleuths also assisted in the probe.
