Bhavnagar (Gujarat), Nov 6 A court in Gujarat’s Bhavnagar city has sentenced a man to life imprisonment for killing a woman whom he brutally assaulted at a bus station, delivering the verdict within two months of the crime.
Principal Sessions Judge Rizwana Bukhari handed the sentence to Faisal Lakhani on Thursday after convicting him for the murder of Kajal Baraiya, who lived with him on a footpath for the last eight years as his wife.
The assault on the woman at the busy bus station had triggered a massive public outcry, prompting the police to constitute a Special Investigation Team (SIT).
During the reconstruction of the crime scene, police flogged Lakhani at the same spot, with officials claiming that the action was taken to appease public sentiment. A video of the flogging went viral on social media.
On September 3, Lakhani savagely attacked Baraiya near the entrance of the bus stand in Bhavnagar. Baraiya succumbed to her injuries the next day, following which the Nilambag police registered a case of murder.
Exactly a month later, on October 4, the police filed a chargesheet against Lakhani. In a swift trial, he was sentenced to life imprisonment, with no possibility of release before the end of his natural life, on November 5.
According to the prosecution, Lakhani, who faced a string of cases, including robbery and other serious offences, had recently returned after serving a jail term. He suspected that Baraiya was having an affair with another acquaintance of his.
When he found Baraiya sitting with the man at the bus station on September 3, he attacked both of them. As per the police, Lakhani kicked and punched Baraiya, smashed her head against a wall and the tiled floor, and inflicted fatal injuries.
The prosecution produced 14 witnesses and nearly 50 pieces of documentary evidence against Lakhani, which the court accepted.
The prosecution also said Lakhani demonstrated such a violent and criminal mindset that he even had a key eyewitness abducted to prevent him from testifying in court. The eyewitness was held captive for three days before being rescued and brought to court to testify.
