NEW DELHI: A Delhi court has sentenced a 32-year-old woman, Leelawati, to life imprisonment for the brutal murder of her two young daughters in 2018 while describing the crime as a “cold-blooded murder” that deeply shook its conscience, given society’s idealisation of motherhood.
The horrifying incident occurred on February 20, 2018, when Leelawati smothered her daughters, aged five years and five months, to death.
While the court acknowledged the severity of the crime, terming it one of the “rarest of rare cases,” Additional Sessions Judge Sachin Jain decided against imposing the death penalty.
The decision was influenced by the well-being of Leelawati’s two surviving children—a seven-year-old daughter and a two-year-old son. The judge expressed concern that completely removing their mother from their lives could have a detrimental impact on their upbringing.
In his ruling, Judge Jain stated, “The act of a mother killing her own daughters shakes not only the conscience of the court but also that of society at large.
However, the possibility of the convict’s rehabilitation and reintegration into society, along with the consideration of her remaining children’s future, led the court to impose a life sentence instead of the death penalty.”
The court also imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 on Leelawati. However, it ruled out compensation under the Delhi Victims Compensation Scheme, as the beneficiary in this case—the mother—was also the perpetrator of the crime.
The court noted that the father of the deceased children had tried to protect Leelawati rather than seeking justice for his daughters, which further complicated the matter of compensation.