HC upholds life term for three in Mungeli murder over stalking

Raipur: The Chhattisgarh high court has upheld the judgment of a trial court convicting and sentencing three men to life imprisonment for murdering a man in Mungeli district over an alleged case of stalking.A division bench comprising Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Ravindra Kumar Agrawal dismissed the appeals filed by the convicts, who are brothers. The bench on May 15 observed that the prosecution successfully proved its case beyond reasonable doubt through a complete chain of incriminating circumstances.According to the prosecution, the incident took place in Oct, 2023 in the district. Two of the three brothers went to the house of the father of the man they later murdered and threatened to kill his son for allegedly misbehaving with their sister.Later that day, the man the brothers had threatened to kill did not return home, prompting his family to search for him. During the search, family members reached a kacha road behind a liquor shop, where they saw the two brothers slit the man’s throat with a sharp knife, while the third brother stood nearby keeping watch to prevent passersby from intervening.The three brothers then fled the spot on a motorcycle. The man died at the spot due to severe hemorrhage and shock from the neck injuries.

Police arrested the three accused on 26 Oct, 2023. On 23 Jan, 2025, the Sessions Judge, Mungeli, convicted the three men under Sections 302/34 (murder with common intention), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence), and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.The court sentenced each of them to life imprisonment along with a fine. Appealing against the conviction, the counsel for the brothers argued that there was no reliable eyewitness account and the case rested on contradictory evidence.The counsel for the third brother contended that no overt act of assault was attributed to him and he had no prior enmity with the deceased. Additional advocate general Shashank Thakur opposed the appeals, stating that the medical evidence, forensic reports, and the recovery of bloodstained clothes and weapons at the instance of the accused established their clear involvement.The high court rejected the defense arguments, stating that the testimony of the eyewitness was clear, natural, and fully corroborated by the medical findings of a doctor. The bench confirmed that all three appellants acted in furtherance of a common intention and conspiracy to execute the brutal assault, finding no illegality or infirmity in the trial court’s order.