Lawyer Gets Life Jail For Strangulating Husband With Phone Charger

A lawyer, Anindita Pal, has been jailed for life by a fast-track court in West Bengal’s North, Parganas district in India, for strangulating her husband, Rajat Dey, to death with a mobile phone charger.

The trial judge, Sujit Kumar Jha, convicted her for the murder and also imposed a fine of 10,000 Rupees.

The court, during the sentencing on Wednesday, also found her guilty of causing the disappearance of evidence, and sentenced her to one year in prison for the offence.

Both sentences will run concurrently, the judge ordered.

Special public prosecutor, Bibhas Chatterjee, had prayed for capital punishment, claiming that it was a premeditated murder.

The court, however, sentenced her to life imprisonment, since she has a three-year-old child, and also because there was no eyewitness, with the conviction also based on circumstantial evidence.

Anindita said she was being framed up, vowing to fight till the “last drop of blood”, as she was being taken to the prison van from the courtroom.

During the trial, the prosecution had claimed that on the night of November 24 and 25, 2018, Anindita strangulated her husband Dey, also a lawyer, with the wire of a mobile phone charger in their New Town flat, near Kolkata.

The prosecution claimed that the couple had been having a strained relationship for some time, and that led to Dey’s murder

Anindita’s lawyer, Pinak Mitra, claimed that she was sleeping in another room, when she heard a sound from Rajat’s room and found him hanging after rushing there.

Dey’s father had lodged an FIR, alleging that Anindita had killed his son, leading to her arrested on November 29, 2018, by the police, following interrogation.

Trial and arguments in the case were completed in March this year.