Life for killing Muslim who married 2 Hindus

NEW DELHI: Two people who stabbed a man to death 13 years ago after he converted two Hindu girls to Islam and married them in Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore district, were sentenced to life imprisonment by the Supreme Court as it rejected a plea by the convicted that they were falsely fabricated.

A bench of justices Ibrahim Kalifulla and UU Lalit dismissed the appeal by Kamal and Vijay who challenged the Madras high court order convicting them on the grounds there was considerable delay in registering the criminal case against them.

According to the prosecution case, the two murdered Sultan Meeran as they were enraged at his marrying two Hindu girls and converting them to Islam. Meeran’s 17-year-old brother had lodged the case.

A trial court in Coimbatore in 2003 convicted the duo after finding merit in the prosecution case. The Madras high court had upheld the judgement after noting there was conclusive evidence to establish the guilt of the duo.

Before the SC, the duo’s counsel argued that they acted in self defence as Sultan and his friends had tried to kill them over an altercation on the sensitive subject of conversion. The state counsel contested the defence and said records indicated to the contrary.

“We have gone through the record and considered rival submissions. The evidence of prosecution witness is fully consistent with the medical evidence on record and is quite cogent and trustworthy,” the SC bench held.