When India professor used chemistry as defence in homicide trial however failed

[ad_1] Soutik Biswas BBC Information, London

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/d50d/live/0ac61670-76a9-11f0-8155-5f8739f897b4.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/d50d/live/0ac61670-76a9-11f0-8155-5f8739f897b4.jpg.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/d50d/live/0ac61670-76a9-11f0-8155-5f8739f897b4.jpg.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/d50d/live/0ac61670-76a9-11f0-8155-5f8739f897b4.jpg.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/d50d/live/0ac61670-76a9-11f0-8155-5f8739f897b4.jpg.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/d50d/live/0ac61670-76a9-11f0-8155-5f8739f897b4.jpg.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/d50d/live/0ac61670-76a9-11f0-8155-5f8739f897b4.jpg.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/d50d/live/0ac61670-76a9-11f0-8155-5f8739f897b4.jpg.webp" loading="eager" alt="BBC Mamta and Neeraj Pathak, a middle-aged Indian couple. Mamta Pathak (right) was sentenced to life for killing her husband, Neeraj (left) by electrocution." class="sc-d1200759-0 dvfjxj"/> BBC Mamta Pathak (proper) was sentenced to life for killing her husband Neeraj (left) by electrocution

"Are you a chemistry professor?" the decide requested.

"Sure," Mamta Pathak replied, clasping her hand in a respectful namaste.

Draped in a white sari, glasses perched on her nostril, the retired school trainer stood earlier than two judges in a courtroom within the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, talking as if delivering a forensic chemistry lecture.

"Within the autopsy," she argued, her voice trembling however composed, "it isn't attainable to distinguish between a thermal burn and an electrical burn mark with out correct chemical evaluation."

Throughout the bench, Justice Vivek Agarwal reminded her, "The physician who performed the autopsy stated there have been clear indicators of electrocution."

It was a uncommon, virtually surreal second - a 63-year-old lady, accused of murdering her husband by electrocution, explaining to the court docket how acids and tissue reactions revealed the character of a burn.

The trade, caught on video throughout her April listening to, went viral in India and shocked the web. However within the court docket, no quantity of expert-like confidence might undo the prosecution's case - a partner murdered and a motive rooted in suspicion and marital discord.

Final month the Excessive Court docket dismissed Mamta Pathak's attraction and upheld her life sentence for the April 2021 homicide of her husband, Neeraj Pathak, a retired doctor.

Whereas Pathak mounted a spirited, self-argued defence - invoking gaps within the post-mortem, the insulation of the home, and even an electrochemical concept - the court docket discovered the circumstantial proof conclusive: she had drugged her husband with sleeping tablets after which electrocuted him.

In court docket, Mamta, a mom of two, had peered over a stack of overflowing case recordsdata, leafing by them earlier than she grew animated.

"Sir, electrical burn marks cannot be distinguished as ante-mortem [before death] or autopsy [after death]," she argued quoting from a forensics e-book.

"How did they [doctors] write it was an electrical burn mark in autopsy [report]?".

Microscopically, electrical burns look the identical earlier than and after demise, making customary examination inconclusive, say consultants. A detailed research of dermal adjustments might reveal whether or not a burn was ante- or autopsy, in accordance with one paper.

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/65f9/live/e38c73f0-76e0-11f0-ab13-2ffa12a7899c.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/65f9/live/e38c73f0-76e0-11f0-ab13-2ffa12a7899c.jpg.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/65f9/live/e38c73f0-76e0-11f0-ab13-2ffa12a7899c.jpg.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/65f9/live/e38c73f0-76e0-11f0-ab13-2ffa12a7899c.jpg.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/65f9/live/e38c73f0-76e0-11f0-ab13-2ffa12a7899c.jpg.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/65f9/live/e38c73f0-76e0-11f0-ab13-2ffa12a7899c.jpg.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/65f9/live/e38c73f0-76e0-11f0-ab13-2ffa12a7899c.jpg.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/65f9/live/e38c73f0-76e0-11f0-ab13-2ffa12a7899c.jpg.webp" loading="lazy" alt="A woman wearing a white sari and flanked by lawyers deposing in a court in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh" class="sc-d1200759-0 dvfjxj"/> The courtroom video of Mamta Pathak arguing her case within the excessive court docket went viral

An impromptu trade on chemical reactions adopted, with the decide probing her on laboratory processes. Mamta spoke about totally different acids, explaining that distinctions may very well be made utilizing an electron microscope - one thing not attainable in a autopsy room. She tried to stroll the decide by electron microscopy and totally different acids. Three ladies attorneys within the background smiled.

Mamta ploughed on - she stated she had been finding out regulation in jail for a yr. Flipping by her tabbed recordsdata with stickers and quoting from forensic drugs books, she pointed to alleged gaps within the investigation - from the unexamined crime scene to the absence of certified electrical and forensic consultants on the scene of the crime.

"Our home was insured from 2017 to 2022, and inspections confirmed it was protected towards electrical fireplace," she stated.

Mamta instructed the court docket that her husband had hypertension and coronary heart illness. She said the precise reason for demise was narrowing and "calcification of his coronary arteries attributable to previous age". She additionally prompt he might have slipped and sustained a hematoma, however no CT scan was performed to verify this.

Neeraj Pathak, 65, had been discovered useless on the household residence on 29 April 2021. The post-mortem dominated electrocution as the reason for demise. Days later, Mamta had been arrested and charged with homicide.

Police had seized an 11-meter electrical wire with a two-pin plug, and CCTV footage from the couple's home. Six tablets of a sleeping capsule had been recovered in a strip of 10.

The postmortem report cited cardiorespiratory shock from electrical present at a number of websites as the reason for demise, occurring 36 to 72 hours earlier than the post-mortem performed on 1 Might.

"However they did not discover my fingerprints on the strip of tablets," Mamta instructed the judges.

However her arguments shortly unravelled, leaving Judges Agarwal and Devnarayan Sinha unconvinced.

For practically 4 many years, Mamta and Neeraj Pathak had lived a seemingly orderly middle-class life in Chhatarpur - a drought-prone district of Madhya Pradesh identified for its farms, granite quarries, and small companies.

She taught chemistry on the native authorities school; he was the chief medical officer on the district hospital. They raised two sons - one settled overseas, the opposite, sharing a house along with his mom. Neeraj retired voluntarily in 2019 after 39 years as a authorities physician after which opened a personal clinic at residence.

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/20bf/live/34391b30-7742-11f0-9cb9-4b17a25d293a.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/20bf/live/34391b30-7742-11f0-9cb9-4b17a25d293a.jpg.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/20bf/live/34391b30-7742-11f0-9cb9-4b17a25d293a.jpg.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/20bf/live/34391b30-7742-11f0-9cb9-4b17a25d293a.jpg.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/20bf/live/34391b30-7742-11f0-9cb9-4b17a25d293a.jpg.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/20bf/live/34391b30-7742-11f0-9cb9-4b17a25d293a.jpg.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/20bf/live/34391b30-7742-11f0-9cb9-4b17a25d293a.jpg.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/20bf/live/34391b30-7742-11f0-9cb9-4b17a25d293a.jpg.webp" loading="lazy" alt="An Indian chemistry teacher called Mamta Pathak is wearing a sari, and standing outside a car in this undated picture." class="sc-d1200759-0 dvfjxj"/> Mamta Pathak taught chemistry at a authorities school for 36 years

The incident occurred through the pandemic. Neeraj was exhibiting Covid signs and stored to the primary ground. Mamta and her son, Nitish, stayed downstairs. Two staircases from the bottom ground linked Neeraj's rooms to the open gallery and ready corridor of his personal clinic, the place half a dozen workers bustled between the lab and the medical retailer.

The 97-page judgment said that Mamta reported discovering her husband Neeraj unresponsive in his mattress on 29 April, however didn't inform a health care provider or the police till 1 Might. As a substitute, she took her elder son to Jhansi - over 130km away - with out clear purpose, in accordance with the motive force, and returned the identical night. She claimed ignorance about how he died when she lastly alerted the police.

Beneath this silence lay a troubled marriage. The judges highlighted longstanding marital discord, with the couple dwelling aside and Mamta suspecting her husband of infidelity.

On the morning of the day he died,, Neeraj had known as an affiliate, alleging that Mamta was "torturing him," locking him in a toilet, withholding meals for days, and inflicting bodily accidents. He additionally accused her of taking money, ATM playing cards, car keys, and financial institution mounted deposit paperwork. Pleading for assist, Neeraj's son contacted a pal who alerted the police, who then rescued the retired physician from what was described as "Mamta's custody".

The couple had even lived aside in current occasions, including weight to the court docket's doubts.

Mamta had instructed the court docket she was the "finest mom," presenting a birthday card from her youngsters as proof. She additionally confirmed pictures of herself feeding her husband and snapshots with household.

But, the judges had been unmoved. They famous that such tokens of affection did not erase motive - in spite of everything, a "doting mom" may also be a "suspicious spouse," they stated.

Fifty minutes into her deposition, after parrying questions and defending herself towards the court docket's doubts, Mamta's composure faltered for the primary time.

"I do know one factor… I didn't kill him," she stated, her voice trailing off.

At one other second, she confessed, "I can not take this very rather more."

Attempting to ease the stress, Decide Agarwal remarked, "You should be used to this… you should be taking courses for 50 minutes in school."

"Forty minutes, sir. However they're young children," Mamta stated.

"Young children in school? However your designation is assistant professor," the decide pressed.

"However they're children, sir," she replied.

"Do not inform us such tales," Decide Agarwal interrupted sharply.

Mamta fought not simply as a defendant, however as a trainer turning the courtroom right into a chemistry lab - hoping to show her innocence by science. But ultimately, the chilly details proved stronger than her classes.