Bombay HC upholds lifer for man in 2005 German woman murder

Convinced with the evidence produced by the prosecution, the Bombay high court has upheld the conviction and life sentence of a 27-year-old man for killing an elderly German woman in 2005 at her house in Pune’s Koregaon Park.

The prosecution’s case is that the deceased wanted to sell a vacant flat of hers in the same society and accused Aqlak Shaikh wanted to buy it. The police had recovered a cheque belonging to the applicant’s bank account from the spot and claimed Shaikh had gone to deceased’s flat to finalise the deal to buy the flat but found her all alone in the house and, intending to grab her property, he assaulted her mercilessly.

According to the division bench of Acting Chief Justice V.K. Tahilramani and Justice Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi, which was hearing the appeal filed by the accused against his conviction, “This evidence is more than sufficient to prove not only the involvement of the appellant but also the motive on his part to do away with the deceased.”

The judges observed, “For the sake of argument, if it is assumed that the evidence as regards the motive is not clearly spelt out, even then the fact remains that the motive is something which is within the exclusive knowledge of the accused and, therefore, the prosecution cannot be expected to bring foolproof evidence about the motive.”

The headless body of the victim, Dr Gudrun, was found on January 6, when her neighbours noticed that no one had seen her since December 31, 2005.