KOCHI: A migrant worker from Assam on Monday was sentenced to death by the North Paravoor Additional District and Sessions Court for raping and murdering a 60-year-old homemaker at Puthenvelikkara in 2018. Parimal Sahu, 28, a resident of Nagaon district in Assam, was found guilty of trespassing into the house, assaulting and raping, and murdering the woman and destroying evidence. The court slapped a fine of Rs 2,20,000 on him. The amount will be paid in compensation to the victim’s son.
The woman, who was staying along with her mentally-challenged son, was found murdered at her residence at Puthenvelikkara Bazar on March 18, 2018. The convict was living in the outhouse on rent with three other migrant workers.
Pronouncing the verdict, Additional Session Judge Murali Gopal Pandala observed that the case comes under “the rarest of rare” warranting the maximum penalty of death, “considering the diabolic nature of the crime after trespassing into the house of a widow with a heavy stone, ravishing her brutally, strangling, smothering and hitting her on her head and face several times with the stone and trying to pass on the blame to her mentally-challenged son.”
“The crime has shocked the conscience of society. It was premeditated as the accused had carried with him the heavy stone as he entered the house of the deceased. Instead of acting as a guardian angel for the widow and her mentally-challenged son, he betrayed their trust and turned out to be the devil himself. The acts of the accused have caused the mentally-challenged son to lose the love and affection of his mother,” said the order.
Factors like the young age of the accused, poor background, family circumstances, and absence of criminal history cannot be taken as mitigating circumstances to take the case out of the category of “rarest of rare,” said the verdict. Public prosecutor Sreeram Bharathan appeared for the prosecution. A team led by M R Murali, the then Vadakkekara SHO, carried out the probe and filed the chargesheet. The victim was found lying in a pool of blood in the bedroom on the ground floor of the two-storey building. The victim suffered deep injuries on her head inflicted with a heavy object.