Birajakhetra: A local court Saturday sentenced a man to life imprisonment after convicting him of rape and murder of a woman here in Jajpur district.
Jajpur district and sessions judge Radhakant Mishra awarded the sentence and imposed a penalty of Rs 5,000 on the convict, Nilu Swain, of Badasuar village under Jajpur police limits. The court pronounced the verdict after examining the statements of 17 witnesses. Two more accused persons — Dev Das and Rabindra Dhal — were acquitted due to lack of evidence.
According to the case diary, the incident had occurred November 5, 2012. Nilu barged into the woman’s house and raped her. He then threatened her and fled.
The next day, the woman lodged a written complaint after which the police arrested Nilu. He was produced in a court and later remanded in judicial custody. After a few days, he came out on bail and threatened the woman and her family members to withdraw the case.
However, when the woman did not budge to his threats, he murdered her June 10, 2013 and went into hiding. Acting on a tip-off, a police team arrested Nilu from Cuttack Link Road and since then he has been in jail.
PNN