MOHALI: After an eight-year-long trial, a Mohali court has convicted Seerat Kaur Dhillon of murdering her husband, businessman Aikom Singh Dhillon, and sentenced her to rigorous imprisonment for life.The court also imposed a total fine of Rs 90,000 on the convict.Seerat was held guilty under Section 302 of the IPC and sentenced to life imprisonment with a fine of Rs 50,000. She was also convicted under Section 201 of the IPC for causing disappearance of evidence and awarded three years’ rigorous imprisonment with a Rs 20,000 fine.Additionally, the court convicted her under Section 25 of the Arms Act and sentenced her to three years’ rigorous imprisonment with another Rs 20,000 fine. All sentences will run concurrently.Seerat has remained in judicial custody since her arrest in March 2017.The case dates back to the night of March 19, 2017, when 37-year-old Aikom Singh Dhillon was shot dead inside the couple’s residence in Phase-3B1, Mohali. According to the prosecution, Seerat shot her husband in the head with a licensed 9 mm pistol following a domestic dispute allegedly linked to her friendship with another man.Investigators said Seerat attempted to dispose of the body by packing it into a large suitcase. The next day, she allegedly hired an auto-rickshaw driver, Tul Bahadur, to help load the suitcase into the boot of her BMW. The plan failed when the driver noticed blood oozing from the suitcase, became suspicious and alerted the police.Acting on the tip-off, police reached the house, recovered Aikom’s body from the suitcase and arrested Seerat.During the trial, the prosecution relied on eyewitness testimony, circumstantial evidence and forensic material to establish the sequence of events. The couple’s minor son testified that he was in an adjoining room when he heard his father scream, followed by a gunshot. The family’s domestic help also deposed that she saw Seerat cleaning bloodstains inside the house after the incident.The auto-rickshaw driver’s testimony proved crucial in corroborating the prosecution’s case. He told the court that Seerat had sought his help in lifting an unusually heavy suitcase and that he noticed blood leaking from it.The prosecution further said Seerat initially confessed to the murder but later changed her stand during the trial, claiming her husband had died by suicide. The court rejected the defence version and accepted the prosecution’s case.With the conviction and sentencing, the high-profile murder case that had drawn widespread attention since 2017 has concluded at the trial court level.
