Man gets death for killing wife, daughter, 2 others

ACCUSED COMMITTED THE CRIME IN 2013 OVER FINANCIAL DISPUTE OF ₹35,000 IN WHICH HIS MOTHER-IN-LAW WAS GUARANTOR

KAPURTHALA: A local court on Saturday awarded death sentence to a 45-year-old man for killing his wife, minor daughter, sister-inlaw and her son at Kotrani village of Phagwara in 2013, following a monetary dispute.

Additional sessions judge Rajwinder Kaur convicted Baljinder Singh alias Kala, a resident of Gurhe village of Jalandhar district, of murdering his wife Reema, four-year-old daughter Sumani, sister-in-law Seema, 28, and her two-year-old son Harsh by attacking them with a sharpedged weapon at his in-laws’ house on November 28, 2013.

Seema’s brother Om Parkash Tari and another son Harry, 6, were injured in the gruesome attack. The court pronounced the death sentence, describing the incident as the “rarest of rare” cases. The court also slapped a fine of Rs 2 lakh on Baljinder, in default of which he will have to undergo rigorous imprisonment for one year. The court directed to pay two-third of the fine amount to injured Harry and Tari.

According to the prosecution, accused Baljinder had lent Rs 35,000 to someone on the guarantee of his wife Reema’s mother Manjit Kaur, but he did not get his money back. He had a fight with his wife over the issue days before the incident. Later, she along with their daughter went to her parents’ house at Kotrani.

On November 27, Baljinder also reached his in-laws’s house and had an argument with his wife and mother-in-law over the non-payment of his money. On the next day, he committed the crime at 5am. Manjit Kaur, who had gone to a gurdwara, found the four members of the family dead and two injured when she came back.