The Delhi High Court has upheld the life sentence awarded by a city court to a woman and her paramour who had conspired and killed her husband nine years ago. A bench of justices B D Ahmed and Veena Birbal dismissed the appeal filed by Shama Parveen and Tauhid Raza,saying "the evidence showing the manner in which the murder was committed and thereafter the body was removed from the place of occurrence by keeping it in an auto clearly shows that there was conspiracy between both the appellants to commit the murder of deceased Mohammed Shameem." The bench relied on the testimonies of Shama's three children who had stated that they had earlier witnessed their father Shameem quarrelling with their mother over her relation with Raza. The evidence clearly shows that appellant Tauhid Raza used to visit his house to meet his mother. He has categorically deposed that Raza used to come soon after his father left the house and used to leave shortly before his father was about to return, the court said,while accepting the statement of Afsar Karim (Shama's son). .All this shows that both the appellants had an intimate relationship with each other. The same constitutes motive of the crime also, the bench also said. According to the police,on the intervening night of February 13-14,2002,after killing Shameem when he was sleeping in his house in Nand Nagari area,Raza in connivance with Shama took the body with another associate Mohammed Khalil in a three-wheeler and threw it at a nearby bus terminal. Raza had also parked Shameem's two wheeler scooter near the body and left the key therein in order to conceal the facts and to give the alleged murder the shape of an accident,as per the investigation. A sessions court in January,2009 had sentenced both the convicts to life imprisonment. Co-accused Khalil,who was sentenced to seven year jail term for helping Raza to throw the body,has not preferred appeal against his conviction and sentence.
