Man gets life term for killing youth

A man has been sentenced to life imprisonment for killing a 23-year-old youth by a Delhi court which relied on the testimony of the victim's father.
The court, while awarding life term to 45-year-old convict Suleman, a Delhi resident, held that the motive behind the murder of Ibrahim was enmity due to a previous quarrel between them.
"The prosecution has established and proved motive of causing death of deceased Ibrahim as enmity and revenge which was developed due to incident of quarrel and beating which took place two days prior to the date of occurrence," District and Sessions Judge T R Naval said.

"Keeping in view all the submissions and relevant factors, I am of the view that ends of justice would meet in case convict Suleman is awarded imprisonment for life and further sentenced to pay a fine of Rs 1 lakh," the judge said, with a direction that out of the fine amount, Rs 75,000 be paid as compensation to the victim's parents.
"If parents are entitled to get compensation under any other scheme of the government or under any other Act or Rule, that would also be payable to them in addition to the compensation," the court added.
According to prosecution, on April 25, 2008 Suleman and three others attacked Ibrahim with knives and also fired gunshots at him, leading to his death.

Victim's father, who was an eyewitness, told the court that a quarrel had taken place between Ibrahim and the accused on April 23, 2008 which led to this incident two days later.

The court, however, acquitted three other accused persons noting that their identity could not be established.
"Non-mentioning of facial descriptions by the witnesses creates reasonable suspicion and shadow of doubt in the truthfulness of the prosecution case in respect of all the accused except accused Suleman," it said.
The police said that victim's father also got injured when he tried to save his son, who was the eldest among his four siblings and used to work at the welding shop in Lajpat Rai Market here.

Ibrahim was taken to the hospital where he was declared as brought dead while the accused fled from the spot.
The court also relied on the post mortem report of the victim which revealed that the injuries suffered by him were sufficient to cause death in ordinary course of nature.
The convict had sought leniency from the court on the ground that he was from a poor economic background and was not a previous offender.