Two months on Gujarat court sentences man to life imprisonment for killing woman at bus station

Bhavnagar (Gujarat), Nov 5 (PTI) A court in Gujarat’s Bhavnagar city on Thursday sentenced a man to life imprisonment for thrashing a woman at a bus station, which caused her death, in two months after the crime was committed.

    Principal Sessions Judge Rizwana Bukhari convicted Faisal Lakhani for the murder of Kajal Baraiya, who lived with him on a footpath for the last eight years as his wife.

    The brutal assault on the woman in the busy bus station in the city had caused a massive public outcry, prompting the police to constitute a Special Investigation Team (SIT).

    During the crime scene reconstruction, police had flogged Lakhani at the same spot, with officials claiming that it was done to appease public sentiment. A video of the flogging had gone 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.

    As per the prosecution, Lakhani, who faced a string of cases, including robbery and other serious offences, was back after serving a jail term and was suspicious of the woman 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, inflicting fatal injuries.

    The prosecution produced 14 witnesses and nearly 50 pieces of documentary evidence against Lakhani, which the court accepted.

    The prosecution said he demonstrated such a violent and criminal mindset that he even got 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 the court to provide his testimony.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)