Bhubaneswar: A special court here on Tuesday awarded life imprisonment to former Gunupur MLA Ramamurthy Gomango for killing his five months pregnant wife in 1995.
The body of Shri Gomango’s wife Sashirekha was found with severe burn injuries at the MLA’s official quarter in MLA colony in Bhubaneswar on August 29, 1995.
Initially, the police had registered an unnatural death case but after a probe the case was converted to a murder case under Sections 302 (punishment for murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Public Prosecutor Rashmi Ranjan Brahma said the Judge who had heard the case had convicted the former legislator from Gunupur Assembly Constituency, Ramamurthy Gomango, in the murder case on June 24.
On Tuesday the Judge pronounced the quantum of punishment in the murder case and sentenced the former MLA to life imprisonment under section 302 of IPC, he said.
The former MLA was also slapped with a penalty of Rs 50,000 and in default of which he would further undergo another one year jail, Shri Brahma said.
The court also imposed Rs 10,000 fine on the former MLA and said if the convict would fail to pay the fine he would further undergo another six months jail term.
Shri Brahma said the court pronounced the judgement after examining the statements of 11 witnesses and 15 documents pertaining to the murder case.
The counsel for Shri Gomango however pleaded the court that considering the age of his client and his illness the court should show some leniency in awarding the quantum of punishment.
The public prosecutor told the court that this was a rarest of rare case in which a five months pregnant lady was burnt alive by her husband who tried to destroy the evidence stating that his wife had committed suicide.
Shri Brahma said the police found no evidence about the theory of suicide case as told by the former MLA as all the items in the bathroom were found intact and the police found a kerosene jar and match box which were used to set ablaze the pregnant lady mercilessly.