Indian man gets double life sentence for killing wife using cobra
Post created on October 14, 2021
An Indian man who used a cobra and a viper to murder his wife has been handed a double life sentence in what prosecutors have called the “rarest of rare” cases.
Sooraj Kumar, 28, set loose a highly venomous Russell’s viper snake on his wife Uthra that left her in hospital for almost two months, prosecutors in the southern Kerala state said.
While she recovered at her parents’ house, he obtained a cobra from a snake handler and threw it at his sleeping wife. Its poisonous bite killed the 25-year-old woman in May 2020.
Kumar was arrested from his home last year after Uthra’s parents raised suspicions, alleging that their daughter was being harassed for more dowry. The woman’s parents said Kumar tried to take control of her property after the death.
On Monday, a court in Kerala’s Kollam district held Kumar guilty of murder and poisoning his wife, and of making an earlier attempt to kill her using a Russell’s viper.
Judge M Manoj sentenced the convict on Wednesday to two consecutive life sentences, but did not accept the prosecution demand for capital punishment considering his age and opportunity to reform, local media reported.
Kumar pleaded not guilty but police said his phone records showed he was in touch with snake handlers and had watched snake videos on the internet before the killing in March last year in Kollam.Kumar stayed in the room with Uthra after the cobra bit her and went about his morning routine the next day when alerted by the woman’s mother, prosecutors said.
“The mode of execution and the diabolic plan of the accused to murder Uthra, his wife who was bedridden, makes it [the case] fall into the category of rarest of rare,” said the public prosecutor, who had sought the death penalty.
Snake handler Vava Suresh said it was possible that Kumar had “inflicted pain on the reptile to provoke it to bite”, the Hindustan Times newspaper quoted him as saying.
