Observing that it was the rarest of the rare offence, a sessions court today awarded death sentence to an ambulance driver for brutally killing a woman doctor last year in a post mortem room with the help of his two associates in order to steal her jewellery.
The capital punishment was given to Yuvraj Sabre by sessions judge P D Ambekar on a plea made by public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam who argued that the murder was most brutal and cold-blooded.
Another accused Pankaj Sadnanshiv, brother-in-law of Yuvraj, was given life imprisonment. Gulab Sindhi, also an co-accused, had turned approver in the case and was given pardon.
Dr Vijaya Choudhari was killed on March 12, 2012, in the civil hospital at Jalgaon when she was on duty. Yuvraj approached the doctor saying a body had been brought to the post mortem room for conducting autopsy.
The doctor rushed to the post mortem room where the accused were present already. As soon as she entered, they locked the door and told the doctor that the body was kept inside another room. When she went there, Yuvraj strangulated her to death while the other two held her hands and legs.
The trio wrapped the doctor's body with a white cloth and took it to a crematorium to perform the last rites, according to the prosecution.
The accused committed the crime to steal her jewellery, Prosecutor Nikam argued and said that they had killed her in the most brutal manner. The murder was cold blooded and pre-planned, he told the court.
Altogether 24 witnesses were examined by the prosecution.
