Latur resident gets life sentence for killing wife

Additional sessions judge JD Kulkarni on Wednesday
sentenced Namdev alias Ashok Mahadev Rasal (37) of Latur to life imprisonment for killing his wife Mahananda and dumping her body into a canal at Loni Kalbhor in 2006.

Namdev was sentenced to five-year rigorous imprisonment (RI) for tampering evidence. He was further sentenced to two-year RI for subjecting his wife to cruelty. All the sentences will run concurrently. Namdev’s brother Balasaheb (24) and his nephew Kishore Chavan (21) — residents of Latur district — were
acquitted due to lack of evidence.

According to the prosecution’s case, Namdev was a driver and married Mahananda in 2005. The relations between the couple had soured as Namdev used to harass her over petty issues.

Namdev took his wife and father-in-law Vishwanath Kamble to a friend’s residence for having dinner on June 15, 2006. After dinner, he took them to a secluded place near a canal and killed them by brutally assaulting them with a knife. He dumped their bodies into the canal to destroy the evidence.

The incident came to light after the Loni Kalbhor police recovered her body from the canal on the next day.

Kulkarni asked the police to investigate the murder case afresh to find out whether Kamble was murdered or he had gone
missing.

The body was identified as that of Mahananda as earlier Namdev had filed a missing persons’ complaint that she had gone missing with her father.

Namdev was arrested and he confessed before the police that he had killed Mahananda and father-in-law, but the police during investigations, had failed to recover his body.

Additional public prosecutor Asif Basit examined 17 witnesses. Basit had sought the assistance of policeman Umesh Jagtap for securing the presence of witnesses in the case.

The accused had said he had dropped his wife and father-in-law at the Hadapsar bus depot and he had left for New Delhi via Mumbai on the day of the incident.

Rs 4 lakh looted from sub-registrar’s office       
Rs4.16 lakh was stolen from the Wadgaon Maval sub-registrar’s office on Tuesday night.  Ironically, the office is situated just behind the police station and shares a wall with the  police lock-up.

The incident came to light when sub-registrar  Sudhakar Yashwant Nivate (49), a resident of Sangvi, lodged an first information report at Wadgoan Maval police station.

Nivate told DNA, “We had collected Rs4,16,630 on Tuesday. We counted the cash and sealed the cupboard. On Wednesday morning around 9.30am when the office was opened, we found the cabin had been forced open and the iron cupboard broken into.”

The police said that some unidentified persons had entered the office from the window by cutting the  the iron rods. No arrests have made so far.