Meerut: A woman and her lover were sentenced to death by a Meerut court in Uttar Pradesh on Friday for strangling her husband.
The duo then placed a snake beneath his body to pass off the murder as a snakebite death.
While sentencing them, the additional district judge – 12, termed the case “rarest of rare”. The court had convicted the two on October 7.
Amit Kashyap, also known as Mikky, was found dead at his house the Akbarpur Sadat village on April 12, 2025. A snake was found trapped under his body and Kashyap’s family initially suspected it to be a case of snakebite.
However, injuries on his neck and scratch marks on his body raised suspicion. A post-mortem examination revealed that Kashyap had died of asphyxia due to strangulation, as reported by India Today.
Investigators then unearthed that Kashyap’s wife Ravita was in a relationship with their neighbour Amardeep were in a relationship. The two conspired to kill Kashyap.
They strangled him and then used the snake to conceal the murder and mislead investigators.
The snake was caught and kept in a container. The prosecution said snake charmers who examined it reported that its venom sac had been removed, ruling out its bite could cause death. The police also questioned the person who allegedly supplied the snake before arresting Ravita and Amardeep.
The police then filed a chargesheet running to more than 500 pages, and the prosecution examined over a dozen witnesses.
The post-mortem report and mobile phone records were key pieces of evidence, additional district government counsel Farzana said. Ravita and Amardeep spoke more than 70 times over four days after Kashyap’s death, she said.
Investigators traced more than 500 calls between the two through a number Amardeep used to contact Ravita, the prosecution said.
The SIM card was registered in the name of Sonu, a resident of Jagriti Vihar, who told the court that he neither used the number nor knew either convict.
During sentencing arguments, district government counsel K K Chaubey sought capital punishment, citing the planned killing and the attempt to destroy evidence.
He urged the court to consider the motive, the manner of the murder and the intentions of the convicts. The prosecution also cited the Shabnam murder case and High Court and Supreme Court judgments in support of its demand.
Farzana and Balraj Singh, the lawyer representing Kashyap’s family, also sought the death penalty for both.
While pronouncing the sentence, the court described a wife as her husband’s “ardhangini”, or equal and complementary half in Hindu tradition. It also invoked Savitri, who did everything she could to save her husband’s life.
