Berhampur: A local court in Ganjam district Thursday sentenced a teacher to life imprisonment after convicting him in the 2018 murder case of his second wife.
The convict was identified as Prafulla Chandra Pradhan, a native of Kharinipada village under Jarada police limits, posted as a teacher at Srirampur Primary School in Ganjam district.
The court of District and Sessions Judge Rupashree Choudhury pronounced the order after examining the statements recorded by 33 witnesses. This was stated by public prosecutor Trilochan Parida to mediapersons here, Thursday
According to case file, he was married to Padmabati Pradhan of Dekhali village under K Nuagaon police limits but their relationship turned sour soon. Later, Prafulla started living separately from Padmabati after taking a house on rent at Triveni Nagar under Town police limits in Berhampur. In the pretext of being unmarried, he married another woman named Subhadra Pradhan in 2012.
The couple soon became parents to a girl child and Subhadra once again became pregnant in 2018. However, Subhadra came to know that her husband was married earlier and pestered Prafulla to divorce his first wife and to save money for her children. Enraged, Prafulla decided to get rid of Subhadra and strangled her to death, August 5, 2018. He feigned that Subhadra died during labour and took her body in an ambulance to a cremation ground in Chikiti. On being informed, Chikiti outpost police detained the ambulance and handed it over to Baidynathpur police.
Police registered a case of unnatural death over a complaint filed by the killer husband himself. However, a postmortem of the body blew the lid on the murder mystery as the report claimed that Subhadra, eight months pregnant at the time of her murder, was strangulated. Police arrested Prafulla and produced him in court. He remained in jail for four years and was later released on bail.
PNN
