Jalpaiguri Court awards death penalty to man for killing wife and daughter

West Bengal man sentenced to death for killing wife and daughter in brutal murder case.

A Sessions Court in West Bengal’s Jalpaiguri district on Tuesday awarded the death penalty to a man for killing his wife and 18-month-old daughter.

The crime occured at the Looksan tea garden in Nagrakata, Jalpaiguri district, where the convict, Lal Singh Oraon, hacked his wife, Sakhi Oraon, and their daughter to death in their home on March 27, 2023. Following the incident, the convict attempted to commit suicide but was rescued by the police.

Sentencing Lal Singh Oraon to death, Judge Biplab Roy, Additional Sessions Judge, 3rd Court, Jalpaiguri, said that he found no chance for the convict’s reformation. “The manner in which the convict has committed the murder of his wife and toddler daughter of 18 months shows that I do not find any reason to believe that he may reform himself if life imprisonment is awarded. A person who has planned and executed the murder of his innocent daughter and wife cannot be reformed, regardless of any lessons given to him in a correctional home,” the judge noted in his order.

Judge Roy also expressed apprehension in his order that the convict after release from the Correctional Home may not spare his own brother, sister and mother-in-law who had deposed before this Court against him.

In October, 2024, the Judge Biplab Roy had awarded another convict, Gopal Das, capital punishment for killing his wife, Lata Das, on April 19, 2019.

Recently, there have been a number of cases of sexual assault and murder involving women or minor girls where capital punishment has been awarded. Following the rape and murder of a post graduate trainee doctor at R.G. Kar Medical College Hospital, there were least three incidents involving the rape and murder of minors at Kultali in South 24 Parganas, Farakka in Murshidabad and Gurap in Hooghly district. In these cases, the investigations were completed and death sentences were awarded to convicts within approximately six to eight weeks.