MP man gets death sentence for killing mother to pocket her Rs 32 lakh FD

A trial court in Madhya Pradesh's Sheopur has sentenced a 26-year-old man to death for murdering a woman who had adopted him as her son and concealing the body in a wall to usurp her fixed deposit of Rs 32 lakh.

A mother is revered as equal to God in the Indian tradition and her murder is inexcusable, the court observed in its order passed on Wednesday, according to the prosecutor.

Additional Sessions Judge L D Solanki pronounced the death penalty to Deepak Pachauri, a resident of Railway Colony in Sheopur district, after finding him guilty under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for the murder of his mother Usha Devi last year.

Special Public Prosecutor Rajendra Jadhav said Pachauri filed a missing person complaint at Sheopur Kotwali police station on May 8, 2024. However, inconsistencies in his statements raised suspicion.

The man later confessed to the murder during interrogation, Superintendent of Police Virendra Jain said.

He was adopted about 20 years back by Usha Devi and her husband Bhuvendra Pachauri from an orphanage in Gwalior.

After his father's death in 2021, Pachauri withdrew Rs 16.85 lakh from his father's fixed deposits. He invested Rs 14 lakh in the stock market and spent the rest.

Following losses, he targeted his mother's FD of Rs 32 lakh, wherein he was the sole nominee, according to the prosecution.

When Usha Devi refused to give him money, he planned her murder.

On May 6, 2024, he pushed his mother while she was climbing stairs. When that failed to kill her, he struck her with an iron rod and strangled her, the prosecution said.

He wrapped the body in a red cloth and concealed it inside a wall beneath a staircase toilet using cement, sand and bricks.

During the investigation, the police exhumed the body in the presence of an executive magistrate and seized the iron rod and other materials, Jadhav said.

Forensic examination was also conducted.

The police had registered a case under sections 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence) of the IPC after gathering sufficient evidence and filed a chargesheet in the court against the accused.