A trial court in Madhya Pradesh’s Sheopur district has sentenced a 26-year-old man to death for the murder of his adoptive mother, whose body he concealed inside a wall to claim her ₹32 lakh fixed deposit.
Additional Sessions Judge L.D. Solanki on Wednesday awarded the death penalty to Deepak Pachauri, a resident of Railway Colony, after convicting him under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code. The court observed that in Indian tradition, a mother is revered as equal to God, and her murder is inexcusable.
According to Special Public Prosecutor Rajendra Jadhav, Pachauri was adopted nearly two decades ago by Usha Devi and her husband Bhuvendra Pachauri from an orphanage in Gwalior. After his adoptive father passed away in 2021, he withdrew ₹16.85 lakh from his father’s fixed deposits, investing ₹14 lakh in the stock market and spending the remainder. Following heavy losses, he allegedly set his eyes on his mother’s ₹32 lakh fixed deposit, for which he was the sole nominee.
When Usha Devi refused to give him money, he devised a plan to kill her.
On May 6, 2024, while she was climbing the stairs, Pachauri first pushed her. When that failed, he struck her with an iron rod and then strangled her to death. He wrapped the body in a red cloth and concealed it inside a wall beneath a staircase toilet, using cement, sand, and bricks to seal it off.
Two days later, on May 8, he filed a missing person report at Sheopur Kotwali police station. However, inconsistencies in his statements raised suspicion, and he later confessed during police interrogation, Superintendent of Police Virendra Jain said.
Acting on the confession, police exhumed the body in the presence of an executive magistrate and recovered the murder weapon and other materials used to conceal the body. Forensic examinations confirmed the details of the crime.
Based on the evidence, the police registered a case under Sections 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) of the IPC and filed a chargesheet against him.
Following a detailed trial, the court found Pachauri guilty and awarded him the death sentence.