A Delhi court on Monday sentenced a 51-year-old man to life imprisonment for murdering his wife and daughter in an early-morning assault inside their house in South Delhi’s Sangam Vihar in 2018, observing that the accused showed an “exceptionally serious degree of violence” towards his own wife and daughters.
The order was passed by additional sessions judge (ASJ) Samar Vishal of Saket courts, sentencing the accused, Nand Kishore, for killing his wife Vidyawati and daughter Kavita, with an iron rod, nearly eight years after the incident, which also left one of his other daughters with severe irreversible injuries. The prosecution had alleged that he was under financial stress over his inability to arrange the marriages of his daughters. Represented by additional public prosecutor Arun Kumar Singh, Nand Kishore, who worked as a cycle and rickshaw repairer, attacked his wife and daughters with an iron rod at their Sangam Vihar residence in the early hours of August 28, 2018, according to Delhi Police’s case.
The court observed, “The murder of two members of the family and the attempt to murder a third during the same occurrence reflect an exceptionally serious degree of violence”. The court added, “The fact that the victims were the convict’s own wife and daughters, who would ordinarily have looked to him for protection and security, materially aggravated the offence”. The court said that the injuries were neither superficial nor accidental. “They were caused by forceful blows with a heavy iron rod directed at the heads of the victims and resulted in fatal and near-fatal consequences,” the court said. “Once the prosecution established that the assault occurred inside the family room and that Nand Kishore was found there immediately afterwards holding the weapon carrying the deceased women’s DNA, the circumstances surrounding his presence with the weapon were matters especially within his knowledge,” the court said.
