South 24-Parganas: 137 bones exhumed, High Court upholds lifer in 2012 murder

Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court has upheld the life sentence of one Gyan Sagar Sharma for shooting an auto-rickshaw driver dead in 2012, chopping his body into pieces and burying it near his factory in South 24-Parganas.

The skeletal remains, including 137 bones such as the skull, lower jaw and ribs, were exhumed nearly two years later along with the victim’s clothing and other articles, following an extra-judicial confession by a co-accused. A Division Bench of Justice Debangsu Basak and Justice Prasenjit Biswas dismissed Sharma’s appeal and upheld the Baruipur Additional Sessions Judge’s order sentencing him to rigorous imprisonment for life and a fine of Rs 10,000 for murder and five years’ rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs 2,000 for destroying evidence.

The court recorded that victim Madan Roy was killed on November 9, 2012. The case began on June 9, 2014, when Gautam Pandey, a local resident, lodged a complaint at the exhumation site in Rania after co-accused Bablu Yadav, then a minor, told locals at Yuba Sangha Club that he, Sharma and others had committed the murder. Police, in the presence of an Executive Magistrate, dug up two bags from land at the boundary of the wife of acquitted accused Debendranath Dwibedi, adjacent to Sharma’s grill factory. The bags contained bones, a mud-stained black pant, a red-and-white sports shoe, a whistle with string, a key and a plastic bag. Witnesses identified the clothing as Roy’s.

The Bench found the confession voluntary and supported by recoveries. Pandey said Yadav told him Sharma shot Roy over an illicit relationship with Roy’s wife, Sabitri Roy, while the victim’s then 15-year-old son, Abhijit Roy, said the killing followed a dispute over repayment of a Rs 20,000 loan. The court said such discrepancies did not affect the core evidence. Abhijit testified that Sharma shot his father outside their home and that he stayed silent after threats from another accused, Ranjit Sharma.

DNA tests confirmed the remains were male, though not conclusively Roy’s; the court said conviction was possible given the credible eyewitness account, confession and recovery of belongings from land linked to Sharma.

On August 19, 2014, two choppers were recovered from behind Sharma’s house at his and Ranjit Sharma’s instance. The court ruled the recovery admissible and said non-recovery of the firearm was not fatal. The Bench directed that a copy of the judgment be sent to the trial court and rejected pending applications.