Artist Chintan Upadhyay gets life imprisonment for hatching conspiracy to kill wife Hema
Mumbai (PTI): A sessions court here on Tuesday sentenced artist Chintan Upadhyay to "rigorous imprisonment for life" for conspiring to kill his estranged wife Hema Upadhyay.
Rejecting the prosecution's demand for death sentence, the court, in the judgement, noted that Chintan was an acclaimed international artist who did not have any criminal antecedents.
While seeking to "finish off all the problems relating to Hema once for all, a thought might have taken the shape of determination to eliminate" her, said additional sessions judge, Dindoshi court, S Y Bhosale in his judgement.
On October 5, the court had held Upadhyay guilty of abetting and conspiring to kill his wife, who too was an artist.
On Tuesday, the sentence was passed.
Three co-accused, namely, tempo driver Vijay Rajbhar and helpers Pradeep Rajbhar and Shivkumar Rajbhar, found guilty of murdering Hema and her lawyer Haresh Bhambhani, too were sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for life.
The court order noted that the flat where Hema and Chintan were residing was jointly owned by them. In case of Hema's death, the property would have gone to Chintan.
While Chintan had filed a petition for divorce on the ground of cruelty which the family court granted, Hema challenged it before the High Court, and thus, Chintan was required to wait till the HC decided the matter, the sessions court said.
These two circumstances were sufficient to infer the motive to kill Hema, it said.
But the case was not "rarest of rare" (which warrants capital punishment), and hence it was awarding the punishable of life sentence, the court said.
The other three accused had no criminal antecedents and were young, the judge said, adding that Shivkumar had just completed 18 years of age when the crime was committed.
"Their financial condition appears to be very poor, and that appears to be the sole ground that they agreed to commit the present
offence," the judge said.
Chintan Upadhyay had crossed 50 years of age and was well-off; he was also an internationally acclaimed artist, the court noted.
"He has no criminal antecedents. It appears that at particular point of time to finish off all the problems relating to Hema once and for all, a thought might have taken shape of determination to eliminate Hema," the court said.
This thought was the result of the particular period he was passing through, it added.
"Thus, there appears less possibility that they (the four convicted accused) would commit any offence in future. In other words, the possibility of reformation of these accused is high," it said.
The court held though "the act of the accused was brutal, the case cannot be termed as a rarest of rare case which warrants death penalty."
Hema Upadhyay and advocate Bhambhani were killed on December 11, 2015, and the bodies were stuffed into cardboard boxes and thrown into a ditch in suburban Kandivali.
Vidyadhar Rajbhar, who is accused to executing the murders, has been absconding.
Chintan Upadhyay was arrested soon after the murders for allegedly conspiring to eliminate his wife.
He spent nearly six years in jail before being granted bail by the Supreme court in September 2021.
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Our relationship with both India and Pakistan is 'good': US
New York/Washington (PTI): America’s relationship with both India and Pakistan is “good”, the US State Department has said, asserting that the diplomats are "committed to both nations".
Speaking at a briefing on Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said that the US working with both nations is good news for the region and the world, and will promote a beneficial future.
“I would say that our relationship with both nations is as it has been, which is good. And that is the benefit of having a President who knows everyone, talks to everyone, and that is how we can bring differences together in this case. So it's clear that the diplomats here are committed to both nations,” Bruce said.
She was responding to a question on the possibility of increased US assistance to Islamabad in terms of arms sales following Pakistan Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir’s meeting with Trump, and whether this was coming at the cost of Trump's relationship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Referring to the May conflict between India and Pakistan, Bruce added, “Obviously, we had an experience with Pakistan and India when there was a conflict, one that could have developed into something quite horrible.”
She said that there was "immediate concern and immediate movement" with Vice President J D Vance, President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in “addressing the nature of what was happening….we described the nature of the phone calls, the work that we did to stop the attacks and to then bring the parties together so we could have something that was enduring."
She also claimed that top leaders in the US were involved in “stopping that potential catastrophe.”
New Delhi has been maintaining that India and Pakistan halted their military actions following direct talks between their militaries without any mediation by the US.
Bruce added that the recent peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan “follows negotiated peace arrangements between Cambodia and Thailand, Israel and Iran, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, India and Pakistan, Egypt and Ethiopia and Serbia and Kosovo.”
Meanwhile, in an interview on Tuesday, Rubio said that “credit goes to” Trump for helping bring several conflicts around the world to an end.
Trump says he wants “to be the President of peace. And so any time we see a conflict where we think we can make a difference, we get involved, and we’ve had good success in that regard. India-Pakistan, Thailand-Cambodia, the peace deal with Azerbaijan and Armenia, just a few days ago,” he said in an interview with ‘Sid and Friends in the Morning’.
