Calcutta HC commutes death sentence of killer mother and boyfriend

KOLKATA: Calcutta high court has commuted the death sentence of a 34-year-old woman and her 37-year-old boyfriend, convicted of killing her one-and-a-half-year-old son in 2016, observing that their crime did not fall under the category of "rarest of rare". On Thursday, the court sentenced them to life imprisonment without remission for 40 years, reports Srishti Lakhotia.

The toddler's body, with blue lips and blood dripping from the nose, was found in a bag on Falaknuma Express at Howrah Station on Jan 24, 2016. Based on the confession of his mother Hasina Sultana , a Howrah court on Feb 27, 2024, held her and Sk Vannur Sha guilty of murdering the child from her former marriage.

Hasina, along with the kid, had started living with her mother, 60-year-old Sk Roshan Bee, citing matrimonial troubles. On Dec 29, 2015, her mother filed a missing complaint with the Tenali-1 police station in Andhra Pradesh's Guntur district, stating that Hasina and the toddler had been missing since the evening of Dec 22, 2015.

Hasina returned to her mother's house without the child. She told the police that she had married Vannur and was living with him in a rented flat in Hyderabad.

She claimed that the child's constant crying drew the landlord's disapproval which led the couple to thrash him. One day, the toddler fell ill and died, she claimed, adding that the couple left his body in the general compartment of a Howrah-bound Falaknuma Express at the Secunderabad station.