Two accused sentenced to 7 years of RI

Mangaluru: In connection to the killing of a friend after a fight, the Mangaluru 6^th Additional District and Sessions Court has sentenced the two accused to 7 years of rigorous imprisonment and also imposed a fine of Rs 25,000 on them.

The convicts are identified as Jeevan (37) and Dilesh (33), residents of Taliparambu Mayilan in Kannur district of Kerala. The convicts had killed their friend K C Sajesh from the very same village on April 2 2014 in Mangaluru. Dilesh was an employee of Kerala Electricity Supply Company.

Jeevan, Dilesh and Sajesh were friends. On April 1^st 2014, in the backdrop of the ban on sale of alcohol in Kerala, the trio had come to Mangaluru in a car. They bad informed back home that they were going to Mangaluru as one of then had to donate blood there. On reaching Mangaluru they booked a room in a lodge and on April 2^nd a fight broke out between them regarding money. Sajesh had procured Rs 30,000 from his aunty, which in turn he had given as a loan to Jeevan and he started demanding back the amount from the latter. This led to a big argument between them which bloomed into a full blown fight. In this backdrop, the lodge staff demanded them to leave the lodge.

Accordingly on April 2^nd, the trio left the room at 7:30 pm in the evening. Later in the night of the same day at around 11:30 pm, Jeevan and Dilesh killed Sajesh by hitting his head with an interlock in the vicinity of a petrol bunk located at Ujjodi near Pumpwell and fled.

The following day, the petrol station staff discovered the corpse of Sajesh and alerted the police. Mangaluru Rural police rushed to the spot and during inspection found an ID card on his body based o which they informed the situation to the family of the deceased at Taliparambu.

Based on the complaint by the sister of the deceased, a case was registered by the police and after investigation, arrested both the accused Jeevan and Dilesh on April 24, 2014. The then police inspectors Harish Kumar conducted a part of the investigation which was continued and concluded by Pramod Kumar by submitting the chargesheet to the court.

The 6^th Additional District and Sessions Court Judge Saiudinnisa investigated the case and passed the judgement as killing not amounting to murder. The Judge sentenced the convicts to 7 years of rigorous imprisonment and also imposed a fine of Rs 25,000. Failure to pay the fine will attract an additional year of regular imprisonment.

During the investigation of the case, 29 witness and 41 evidences were examined by the court. The witness given by the staffs of the lodge and Sajesh’s aunty played a prime role in the sentencing of the accused. Public prosecutor Judith O M Crasta argued on behalf of the prosecution.