Shimla: A Punjab man was sentenced to life imprisonment for killing his newly-wed wife by pushing her off a cliff in the suburbs of the Himachal Pradesh capital after expressing doubts about the marriage, police records show.
An IIT-Delhi student was murdered by another IITian over her relationship with some other man. Here also the killer was sentenced to life in prison.
In the case of the newly-wed, the body of victim Simranjit Kaur was recovered from a gorge in Hasan Valley near Kufri, almost a week after the crime.
Simranpal Singh Bhullar, who hails from Ferozepur in Punjab, was arrested after his parents complained that their son and daughter-in-law had gone missing.
In another case of a crime of passion, a man accused of murder and his girlfriend committed suicide at a hotel in the capital.
Sudheesh Singh and his girlfriend Devi Vaid were found unconscious in a hotel. They were taken to a hospital by the hotel staff, where the man was declared brought dead. The woman died in hospital later.
Singh was accused of murdering Avinash Ramteke, who was engaged to be married to Devi, in Chhattisgarh.
Police recovered two suicide notes from the crime scene.
“In one of the notes, Singh claimed that I am solely responsible for the murder of Avinash. In the second note, he said that we are committing suicide on our own and nobody is responsible for this act.”
Both the handwritten notes were in Hindi, a police official said.
As per the police, the couple was known to Avinash and Singh committed the murder in revenge as the marriage of Devi and Avinash was finalised by their families.
The murder of an IIT-Delhi woman student in a hotel here put the spotlight on the town.
Gaurav Verma, a third-year architecture student of IIT-Roorkee, was accused of murdering his friend Pragati Tibberwal.
Tibberwal, a resident of Patna, and Verma of Uttar Pradesh’s Gonda district, came to Shimla for holidaying. They had been friends for the last three years, but their relationship had become strained.
Two knives, a broken liquor bottle allegedly used in the crime and a cake were also found in the hotel room.
Verma, who was sentenced to life imprisonment for the crime by a local trial court, was in love with the girl and there was an altercation between them over their relationship.
As per the police investigation, Verma had made attempts to commit suicide after committing the crime.
When Pragati informed Verma about her relationship with some other man, he got angry and murdered her.
Verma had hit Pragati with a beer bottle when she was sleeping. He then slashed her throat and wrists with a knife.
Years after the crime, Verma got a second innings in life when he was allowed by Kanda Model Central Jail authorities under the prisoner’s rehabilitation project to visit a nearby school to teach maths and physics to students from class XI and XII.
In the newly-wed murder case, the bridegroom’s suspicion that his wife was having an extramarital affair had led to an argument during the honeymoon.
After pushing his wife off a cliff, Bhullar waited at the spot for more than 30 minutes to make sure that she was dead, found the police investigation.
A seasoned journalist with over two decades of experience, Vishal writes on a wide range of subjects which include biodiversity, climate change and links between environment & development. He also covers politics and other developments in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. He lives in Chandigarh & Shimla.
