A 41-year-old man has been sentenced to life by a court in Puttur for clubbing his lover to death in February 2011 in Sullia taluk.
Puttur Fifth Additional District Sessions Court Judge T.J. Shivashankare Gowda convicted Karunakara Pataly of Mittoor in Sullia taluk, of assaulting his lover Arunashree at their residence in 2011.
In 2000, Arunashree’s husband Arun Kumar sought divorce after discovering her affair with Karunakar. After Mr. Kumar received custody of their daughter, Arunashree moved in with Karunakar.
They had a daughter out of wedlock.
However, suspecting infidelity, around midnight on February 21, 2011, Karunakar assaulted Arunashree – who was pregnant with their second child – with a wooden club, leading to her death.
Man asked to register marriage
While letting go off a man who had allegedly stabbed his lover, a Puttur court has asked him to register their marriage as well as furnish a bond assuring the court he would not ill-treat her.
On May 10, 2012, Harish (22), a resident of Hosdurg in Kasaragod district, stabbed his lover Soumya (20) of Aletti village in Sullia taluk, at her residence.
A case of attempt to murder was registered against him at the Sullia Police Station, and in the first hearing before the Puttur Fifth Additional Sessions Court, Soumya told the judge that he had stabbed her after she did not show interest in his marriage proposals.
In her complaints, she said that though they were in love, she could not commit to marriage until her under-graduation degree was done. As her father, Narayan Naik, a daily-wage labourer, had struggled to finance her education, she did not want to give up on her education, she told the court then.
However, on his release on bail, the two eloped and got married at a temple on December 12, 2012.
Later, during the hearing on the same day, Soumya turned hostile, and attributed the injuries to a fall and not because of stabbing.
With the victim going hostile and medical evidence not conclusively pointing to stab injuries, the prosecution, led by public K. Shivaprasad Alva, believed the case would not have held.
Instead, they told the court that the marriage – whose registration was in doubt – was a ruse by Harish to escape conviction.
In his judgment on July 29, Judge T.J. Shivashankare Gowda said a conviction would ruin any chances of a happy marriage.
However, to ensure this was not a ruse, he directed Harish to present a registration within two months, and furnish a bond of Rs. 1 lakh surety that Soumya would be treated well for two years.
