Udayan Das was found guilty of the murder of a female friend and sentenced to life in prison
A fast-track court in Bengal's Bankura has sentenced a man from Bhopal to life imprisonment for the murder of his 28-year-old female friend, whom he had met on social media and lured to Madhya Pradesh with promises of a job in the United States.
Udayan Das, after murdering Akanksha Sharma on July 15, 2016, put her body in a trunk, entombed it in cement in the compound his house and covered it with marble.
"I have no regrets and will definitely go to the High Court," Das, now in his mid-30s, told the media after emerging from the courtroom on Wednesday.
Judge Suresh Biswakarma, who pronounced Das guilty of murder yesterday, sentenced him to life in prison today. The Chief Public Prosecutor, Arun Chattopadhyay, had asked for the death sentence, declaring it a heinous and "rarest of rare" crime.
Udayan Das's lawyer, Abhishek Biswas, said an appeal will be moved before a higher court challenging the conviction.
The prosecution submitted to the court that Ms Sharma left her parents' home in Bankura on June 23, 2016, saying she was going to the US for a job in an international aid agency. On reaching Das's home in Bhopal's Saketnagar she realised that she had been duped, which led to an argument between two.
Akansha Sharma, 28, had been strangled after which her body was placed in a metal box.
The prosecution told court that a month later Udayan Das strangled Akanksha Sharma put her body in a trunk and entombed it in a slab of cement in the compound of his house.
He then used her mobile phone, the prosecution said, to message her family and assure them that she was well and working in the United States, but unable to talk as she did not have a local SIM.
Das even visited her family in Bankura in October that year.
Eventually suspecting that something was amiss, as they had not spoken to their daughter for months, the family lodged a report at the Bankura Sadar Police Station.
The cops tracked the location of her mobile to Bhopl.
Ms Sharma's father and brother went to the city but failed to locate her.
Her father, Shivendra Narayan Sharma, then lodged a case of kidnapping against Udayan Das in January 2017, following which police went to Bhopal and arrested him February 1. After his arrest psychologists described him as a "psychopath".
Udayan Das confessed to his crime under questioning and Ms Sharma's remains were recovered from his residence, the prosecutor told the court, adding that police filed a chargesheet within 90 days of the arrest and 19 witnesses were examined during trial.
Das is also accused of murdering his parents in Raipur. He allegedly buried their bodies in the compound of their home in the Chhattisgarh capital after killing them.
With input from PTI