Chandigarh, Jan 25 (IANS) A 72-year-old father’s determination to prove, using technology, that the death of his daughter was not a mere road accident but a planned murder has borne fruit. The main accused in the case has been sentenced to life imprisonment after a 12-year trial in a court here.
Mohali resident Jitender Mohan Singh, 34, was held guilty by Additional District and Sessions Judge Raj Shekhar Attri on charges of murder and attempt to murder after a long court case involving the use of 3-D animation and video-conferencing with surface transportation experts sitting in London.
He was sentenced to life imprisonment Wednesday and also asked to pay a penalty of Rs.75,000 to the mother of victim Manisha Attri.
“We had sought death penalty for the accused as his action was barbaric. But we are happy that he has been convicted in this case. There was enough evidence to punish the guilty. We will approach the high court now for punishment to six others acquitted in the case,” said Manisha’s lawyer and father I.P. Attri.
A budding lawyer herself, Manisha’s scooter was hit by a Maruti Esteem car in Sector 24 here on Feb 25, 1996. She received head injuries and succumbed to those after struggling for 16 days at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) here. Her mother, Harjit, was also injured in the accident. The speeding car was being driven by Jitender Mohan Singh and had six other occupants.
Manisha’s father insisted from the beginning that his daughter was not killed in an accident but murdered as she was dealing with a case of property dispute against the suspect.
The father fought all odds to get a case murder registered. Attri took the help of technology and experts to prove that the accident was planned to kill his daughter. He used 3-D animation and other technology to prove his assertion in court.
For the first time ever, the district court here used video-conferencing in this case with two London-based surface transportation experts – David George Ibrahim and Satish Sharma – to prove that the ‘accident’ was indeed planned. The experts were associated with London’s Imperial College of Sciences. The conferencing itself cost nearly Rs.100,000.
An animated recreation of the accident was done using 3-D technology based on statements of eyewitnesses to prove that the accident was planned.
“People used to advise me that I should just seek compensation for the accident. But I knew that my daughter was killed in a planned way by the accused. She was a capable lawyer and I wanted to get justice for her,” Attri said.
But the family of the convict is now distraught.
“We will move an application in the high court against the order. Jatinder has a 10-year-old son. It will be difficult to explain things to him,” his father Davinder Singh said.