Indore, Jul 1 A court here has sentenced a former bank manager to life imprisonment for murdering his wife and then having a cobra bite her to make it appear as a death due to snake bite.
Besides the offence of murder under the Indian Penal Code, Amitesh Pateriya alias Shalu (43) was also convicted under section 51 (killing a protected wild animal) of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
The court also imposed a fine of Rs 45,000 on him.
Additional Sessions Judge Hemant Kumar Raghuvanshi, in the judgment passed on June 24, held that Pateria was found guilty beyond reasonable doubt of killing his wife, Shivani, on December 1, 2019, by smothering her with a pillow.
In order to escape punishment, he then caused her to be bitten by a cobra, and later killed the snake too, the judge noted.
Additional Public Prosecutor Chandrashekhar Chaudhary told PTI that the prosecution presented 28 witnesses during the trial.
Pateria was a former manager at a private bank.
According to the prosecution, police found a dead cobra at the crime spot. Pateria claimed that she had been bitten by the venomous snake, but the autopsy repot stated that she had died due to asphyxia, which gave the lie to his story.
During interrogation, Pateriya told police that he had purchased the cobra from a snake charmer at Alwar railway station in Rajasthan for Rs 5,000.
Witnesses from Shivani's family told the court that the relationship between her and her husband was strained.
