Mumbai: A Mumbai sessions court on Monday handed life sentence to Sajjad Mogul, the security guard found guilty of killing 25-year-old lawyer Pallavi Purkayastha at her Wadala residence in August 2012.
Observing that the crime did not fall in the ‘rarest of the rare’ category, sessions judge Vrushali Joshi who on last Monday found Mogul guilty for the murder, pronounced that the convict be imprisoned for the rest of his life.
While arguing for the quantum of sentence, the prosecution lawyer Ujjwal Nikam had argued for death penalty listing out 10 aggravating circumstances that included the cruel nature of the crime and the fact that Pallavi’s live in partner Avik Sengupta also died later because of the shock of Pallavi’s death.
The defence had argued for the life sentence, the minimum sentence, on the ground that Mogul was 22-years-old when he committed the murder and he was the sole breadwinner of his Kashmir based family.
On August 9, 2012, Pallavi, the daughter of an IAS officer was found murdered at her residence by her boyfriend Avik Sengupta who was residing with her at an apartment at Wadala.
The Wadala police registered a murder case and following subsequent investigations, the Mumbai crime branch arrested the watchman of the building Himalayan Heights where Pallavi resided.
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