SRIGANGANAGAR COURT SENTENCED COUPLE TO LIFE IMPRISONMENT FOR COLD-BLOODED MURDER

Raj Sadosh/Abohar.

The court of Additional District and Sessions Judge (No. 1) Kamal Lohia at Sriganganagar has sentenced Jasmine, alias Ashu (26), and her husband Rohit (27) to life imprisonment for the murder of Sri Lanka based businessman Vijayinder Singh Rathore (50) in December 2022. A fine of Rs. 10,000 was also imposed on each of them. The couple had been arrested from a hideout in Abohar.

Prosecution said that On December 17, 2022, Jasmine called Vijayinder to her home. Rohit was already hiding in the bathroom. When Vijayinder and Jasmine were alone in the room, Rohit emerged and struck Vijayinder forcefully on the head with a kitchen griddle (tawa). While Vijayinder lay bleeding, Jasmine intimidated him by brandishing a sword. The couple snatched his ATM card, cash, and mobile phone, and forced him to reveal his PIN. Subsequently, they repeatedly struck his head with the griddle and sticks. Vijayinder died at the scene; the post-mortem report cited a fatal head injury as the cause of death.

After the murder, the couple allegedly placed the body in a water tank, loaded it onto a handcart, and transported it to a vacant plot on Chak 6-Z Road. There, they burned the body using petrol siphoned from a scooter. Later, they withdrew money from Vijayinder ‘s bank account using his ATM card. On the morning of December 18, neighbours Bhawani Shankar and Subhash Khatik spotted the burning body and alerted the police. The body was identified by the victim’s brother, Satpal Singh.

Analysis of the deceased’s mobile Call Detail Records (CDR) traced the couple’s location to Abohar, where Rohit and Jasmine were subsequently arrested. The prosecution presented eighteen witnesses, 106 documents, and fourteen pieces of physical evidence (articles) in court. Additional Public Prosecutor Rajpal Nayak argued that this was not merely a case of murder but a cold-blooded conspiracy in which a relationship was weaponized.