Kolkata: A Barasat fast-track court on Wednesday sent New Town lawyer Anindita Pal Dey, 35, to life imprisonment for killing her husband Rajat Dey, a Calcutta HC lawyer, by strangulating him with the cable of a phone charger in 2018. On Monday, additional district and sessions judge of fast-track third court Sujit Kumar Jha had convicted her after she was found guilty under IPC sections 302 (murder) and 201 (causing of disappearance of evidence).
Though special pubic prosecutor Bivas Chatterjee demanded capital punishment, the court sentenced her to life behind bars with a surety of a fine of Rs 10,000 reasoning that she has a three-year-old and the conviction was based on electronic evidence.
“I prayed for the extreme punishment claiming that it was a premeditated crime. But the judge reasoned that she was a mother of a young child and had committed the crime for the first time,” Chatterjee said, adding that there was no witness to the crime and the conviction was based on circumstantial evidence from documents from WhatsApp, Google and Facebook.
While being taken to the prison van from the courtroom, Anindita shouted at the media persons, saying, “I have been framed. I’m innocent. I will fight till the last drop of my blood and say I’m innocent.”