New Delhi: A six-year-old girl, rendered an “orphan in every sense” after her father killed her mother and was sentenced to life imprisonment, became the focal point of a Delhi court’s sentencing order in a domestic violence case Saturday.Additional sessions judge Anuj Agrawal sentenced Subhash Bera to life imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 10,000 for murdering his wife over unfounded suspicions about her fidelity and directed the Delhi Legal Services Authority, South-East, to consider the child’s case for compensation and rehabilitation under the Delhi victim compensation scheme.Calling the child’s silence the most “eloquent plea”, the judge observed that “few tragedies are greater than a child becoming an orphan in every sense except in name.” The court said it witnessed a “poignant and painful scene” of a daughter standing before the man who gave her life but had been found guilty of taking away her mother’s life. “In that silent meeting lay the true tragedy of this case: a child bereft of her mother and, from this day, separated from her father by the mandate of law,” Judge Agrawal recorded in the sentencing order.The case relates to the murder of the convict’s wife on Nov 14, 2022. The court noted that the couple, which had migrated to Delhi from Bengal, two months back in search of job, had quarrelled shortly before the incident, during which the accused expressed suspicion over the deceased’s character and threatened to kill her if she did not end her alleged affair.Medical evidence established that the woman died due to strangulation. The court on July 3 ruled out the possibility of a third person’s involvement as alleged by the defence, noting the “time gap” between the couple being last seen together and the recovery of the body was very small. “There is no evidence on record to suggest that any third person had access to the room or that the death could have been caused by someone other than the accused,” the court concluded.
