Mumbai: Testimony by 8-year-old girl lands man in jail for life for killing her brother – Times of India

MUMBAI: The eyewitness testimony of an eight-year old girl who saw her mother’s live-in partner bang her four-year-old brother’s head against a wall at their Goregaon home in 2015, has ensured that the man, 35, is sentenced to life imprisonment.
The court noted that accused Taher Pathan was neither under duress nor was he provoked by the child, Ayan Khan. “The accused committed the offence to satisfy his lust to get married to the complainant who is the mother of the deceased. . the accused is not entitled to lenient view for benefit of provisions under The Probation of Offenders Act,” judge AZ Khan said. Under the act a convicted accused can be let off on a bond of good behaviour.
The victim’s parents were divorced. His mother and the accused had started living together in 2014.
The judge said that the prosecution had rightly proven that on January 31, 2015, between 11 and 11. 30am the accused murdered the child by beating him as he considered him a hurdle in his plans to marry his mother. The court said that the accused destroyed some evidence by cleaning the child’s blood, who suffered serious injuries to the head, chest, and other body parts.
The girl said that on day of incident when her mother was out, the accused came home and pushed her brother to the wall, beat him, held his legs, and rammed his head against the wall. She added that when her brother started bleeding from his mouth, the accused took him to the bathroom and washed him. The girl deposed that the accused asked her to call her mother, further recalling that, when she saw her mother at street corner, she was reprimanded for leaving the boy alone with the “shaitaan”.
When she informed her mother about the incident, they rushed to the home, and saw the accused with the boy on his shoulder. She said, her brother was taken to the hospital but died. The mother too deposed in court.