Berhampur: A local court sentenced a youth to rigorous life imprisonment after convicting him for the kidnap and murder of a minor boy, Wednesday. The additional district and sessions judge (ADJ) Prasanna Kumar Panda heard the matter and handed down the punishment to Lingaraj Sethi, 27, of Brahmanipalli village under Chhatrapur police limits.
The judge also slapped a fine of Rs 20,000 on him apart from the punishment. In default, the convict has to serve an additional two years of imprisonment, the judge observed. The judge passed the order on the basis of statements recorded by three police officers and 17 witnesses.
This was stated here by additional public prosecutor (APP) Gyanendranath Jena who pleaded the matter in the court on behalf of the state government.
Jena said two police officers investigating the case submitted the charge sheet in the court indicting the involvement of Sethi in the crime.
According to the case diary, Sethi was in one-sided love with a girl of his maternal uncle’s village Gurundi. Sethi asked the girl to marry him to which the latter denied. Enraged, he threatened to kill her brother. He tried all sorts of tricks but the girl refused his proposal
Accordingly, he kidnapped the younger brother of the girl Bhiku Sethi, studying in Class-VII, December 6, 2018. Police registered a case after the boy’s mother filed a complaint in the police station. Police launched a probe and recovered the decomposed body of the boy from a mango orchard near the village, December 10, 2018.
Police changed the previous kidnapping case into a murder and arrested Sethi in this connection, December 27, 2018. During interrogation Sethi admitted to the crime where he disclosed to have killed the boy by slitting his throat and slicing his private part. He killed the boy after the latter’s sister refused to marry him, he claimed.
PNN