BENGALURU: A Bengaluru court has sentenced a 38-year-old man to life imprisonment for the 2016 murder of an IBM employee, relying heavily on the “last seen” theory and CCTV evidence to secure the conviction.
The convict, Sukhbir Singh, was also fined Rs 10,000 by the court on Thursday for the murder of 31-year-old Kusum Rani Singla, an IBM techie who lived in an apartment in Kadugodi.
Singh, a native of Haryana’s Palwal district, had previously worked with Yahoo and Accenture in Bengaluru between 2011 and 2013 before moving to Delhi and other locations.
According to the chargesheet, Kusum was last seen alive on January 19, 2016, when she came down to the apartment security gate to escort Singh to her flat.
CCTV footage later showed Singh leaving the apartment complex alone around 3.30 pm. The postmortem report estimated that the murder took place between 12.30 pm and 3 pm.
Statements from security guards and witnesses who saw the two entering the flat, along with CCTV footage, played a crucial role in the prosecution’s case.
“Handwriting experts also confirmed that the signature in the visitors’ register belonged to Singh,” public prosecutor Meenakumari Rajavamshi said.
The crime came to light around 8 pm when Kusum’s roommate, Nidhi Sharma, returned home and found the apartment door partially open, with blood-stained footprints near the entrance.
Inside, Kusum was found dead in a blood-soaked room. Police said she had strangulation marks on her neck and multiple stab injuries to the head.
Investigators later discovered that her mobile phone, debit cards and credit cards were missing.
Police recovered Singh’s blood-stained clothes from a dustbin at a nearby shopping mall.
“After the murder, Singh went to a shop, bought new clothes and changed there. He used Kusum’s debit card to make the payment,” the prosecutor said.
Investigators said Singh later withdrew Rs 30,000 using Kusum’s debit card before fleeing to Haryana the same night.
He was arrested on January 21, 2016, from his native village Mandkola in Haryana.
Police said Kusum and Singh had become friends on Facebook in December 2015.
According to investigators, Singh had allegedly been pressuring Kusum for a loan of Rs 50,000. She reportedly refused and told him it was inappropriate for a man to repeatedly ask a woman for money, police sources said.
