Man awarded death for burning three

Porbandar district court on Wednesday awarded death sentence to one Fatesinh alias Ramlal Chauhan, holding him guilty in the case of burning three members of Umraniya family over 10 months back. Chauhan, 50, was a neighbour of Umraniyas.  

According to the prosecution, Harsukh Umraniya (45), his wife Manju (40) and his sister Rita alias Bena (38) were set on fire on April 1, 2008 night by Chauhan. They could not escape as the accused had closed the doors of their room from outside. Harsukh worked on the outskirts of Aadityana of Porbandar.

The police subsequently arrested Chauhan and lodged a case against him under Sections 302, 436, 342, 452 of the Indian Penal Code and Section 135 of BP Act.
Chauhan resorted to burning the three as Umraniyas could not pay him a lump sum in lieu of his daughter marrying the younger brother of Harsukh, Dinesh.

Dinesh had been in love with Savita, daughter of Chauhan, and they got married before Shivratri. They again married as per Hindu rituals on March 30, but Chauhan was not happy - he wanted Rs 35,000 from the Umraniya family, sources said.

According to primary investigation made by the police, Chauhan had received Rs30,000 from a Patel family in lieu of marrying his daughter in that family. He expected a lump sum from the family in which his other daughter, Savita, got married.

However, Dinesh eloped with Savita and married her. This enraged Chauhan. Chauhan didn’t oppose Savita’s marriage with Dinesh, but insisted that the Umraniyas pay him. When the Umraniya family could not, he grew angry. After pouring kerosene from windows and from terrace, he set the Umraniyas on fire. He bolted their room from outside so that they could not escape, sources said.