Eight years after he allegedly murdered St Stephens’ College student Priyanka Garg in a fit of jealousy, Uttam Kumar was today convicted by the court of Additional Sessions Judge Bharat Parashar at the Rohini Courts Complex.
Kumar, 51, was held guilty under Section 302 (murder) of the IPC. The court will pronounce the quantum of sentence on Monday.
Priyanka was murdered at her Adarsh Nagar house on April 19, 1999 shortly after returning home from shopping with her mother. Kumar, who was a tutor to Priyanka’s younger brother Vibhor, was home at the time and it is thought that he was attracted to the second year college student whom he used to teach earlier.
The prosecution has argued that Kumar was angry that Priyanka had been engaged to someone else and was set to get married in another 10 days. When Priyanka and her mother returned, Kumar dragged the student inside the bathroom and bolted the door. her The family tried to open the door and called in the police who broke open the door only to find Priyanka dead with her neck having been slashed by a knife.
Kumar was arrested shortly afterwards and a chargesheet filed on July 12, 1999. During the trial, the defence argued that Kumar had been implicated by the victim’s family. The tutor said on April 19, 1999 he was called by Priyanka’s father Anil Garg and told that she had been murdered because she “was going to elope with Tinku”. Kumar said he was asked to take the blame for the murder and was promised that his wife would be paid money for this. But ASJ Parashar dismissed this, saying: “In this case, the court understands that the only motive behind the crime was the lust of the accused.” The court observed that Kumar must have assumed that Priyanka had begun to like him too.
“Although it is possible that since the victim had been his student for a long period, she might have developed some kind of infatuation for the tutor, it will be unjust to call this love,” the judge said.
The court said the accused “could not tolerate the impending marriage of the victim, basing it on his lust for her”. The court accordingly dismissed the defence argument and pronounced Kumar guilty.