The High Court on Thursday rapped a woman for attempting to mislead the court by filing a complaint about the police allegedly harassing her whenever she enquired about the investigation into her husband’s death.
The court slapped a fine of `1 lakh on Usharani (38), also allegedly involved in her husband’s murder.
On March 23, Usharani filed a police complaint that her husband Muniraju was missing. She later filed a habeas corpus petition alleging that the police had failed to find her husband and had harassed her when she visited the station to enquire about the investigation.
But the police submitted in court that she had killed Muniraju with the help of her daughter’s boyfriend Mahesh (24) and his friend Suresh (29) on March 21. She had crushed sleeping pills and mixed them in Muniraju’s glass of buttermilk, before smothering him to death using pillows. They then burnt his body near Hoskote.
Policemen recovered some dentures, a skull and some half-burnt clothes from the spot. They said Usharani had murdered her husband as he was against his second daughter’s love affair. On April 21, Muniraju’s friend Vijaykumar approached the police with his suspicions about Usharani’s behaviour ever since Muniraju went missing.
The police then interrogated Usharani and she is said to have admitted to her crime.
She said Muniraju used to cast doubts whenever she dressed well and often came home in an inebriated condition and abused her in front of their children. All three accused were arrested and produced before a magistrate, who remanded them to judicial custody.
On Thursday, the HC division bench, comprising Justice N Kumar and Justice H Billappa, observed that Usharani had “misused the law” and “wasted the court’s time”.