UDAIPUR: The Additional District and Sessions Court in Vallabhnagar, Udaipur district, Saturday sentenced a man to death and imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 for killing his wife by burning her alive in 2017. The accused, identified as Kishandas, a resident of Navaniya village in Vallabhnagar, used to taunt his wife Laxmi by calling her dark and overweight, which led to her murder.

Judge Rahul Chaudhary of the Additional District and Sessions Court, while sentencing Kishandas to hang till death, remarked that the act of the accused shakes the conscience of society. It is an extremely rare and heinous act. To prevent the recurrence of such a brutal act, the only option is to sentence the accused to death, he remarked. During the trial, additional public prosecutor Dinesh Chandra Paliwal presented 14 witnesses and 36 documents which were crucial in the sentencing.Paliwal said that the incident occurred on the night of June 24, 2017, at 11pm. Kishandas gave Laxmi a chemical, claiming it was a medicine that would make her fair if applied to her entire body. He removed all her clothes, applied the chemical on her body, and then set her on fire using a lit incense stick. Within seconds, her entire body was engulfed in flames. Kishandas threw the remaining chemical on her and fled. Hearing her screams, her in-laws and sister-in-law, who were present in the house, rushed her to the hospital in a critical condition, Paliwal said.