The Bombay high court upheld the lower court’s order sentencing a murder convict to life imprisonment. The accused, a father of a three-year-old minor, beat his physically challenged daughter causing her death.
The court observed that even if the death was not intentional, he was certainly aware that he would be causing grievous hurt to the child. A division bench of Justice V.K. Tahilramani and Justice P.D. Kode was hearing an appeal of convict Sunil Tare, represented by advocate Arfan Sait, challenging the order by a Thane lower court, dated May 7, 2007, convicting him for the murder of his daughter. Tare had claimed that he was innocent and denied the charges; he claimed that he was misinterpreted.
The incident took place on January 11, 2006. Tare, who lives with his wife and two children, had frequent quarrels with his wife after which she would go to live with her parents. On one such occasion, out of frustration, Tare assaulted his physically challenged daughter, who was alone with him. Tare began beating her up with a stick and stone causing several grievous injuries to her spinal cord. When his paternal aunt Bharti and his neighbour Surekha tried to stop him, he threatened to attack them with the stone too. The girl lost her life the following day.
While passing the order, the bench noted that his daughter had sustained seven injuries and that there were contusions on her face and various injuries on her body.
The bench emphasised that the accused had attacked his daughter mercilessly despite being aware of her condition. “The attack was so severe that it caused a fracture of the fifth cervical vertebra and laceration to cervical spinal cord in addition to other injuries,” it said.