Chandigarh, Jan. 22 -- A local court has sentenced a resident of Daria village to life imprisonment for stabbing a plumber to death in Mauli Jagran in January 2024. As per the police complaint, the wife of the victim Sanjay Yadav, Preeti Yadav had said that they had an infant daughter and were residing in a rented accommodation at Vikas Nagar, Mauli Jagran. On January 1, 2024, in the evening, when her husband Sanjay had gone to market to purchase vegetables, a call was received on his mobile and when she picked up the call, the caller asked her about Sanjay's whereabouts. She said that she would inform Sanjay whenever he would come home. Her husband was a plumber by profession. When Sanjay came home, she told him about the call. That day, Sanjay went away at around 8.10 pm from his house but did not return. Preeti said that she along with her daughter and brother in law went looking for Sanjay. When they reached near Vikas Nagar park at around 4.30 am on January 2, she came to know that a scuffle had taken place between some boys and a man and he was stabbed in the abdomen. She went to the police and later identified the dead body of her husband. A murder case was registered at the Mauli Jagran police station based on this. During the investigation, the accused Ajay, alias Bhanja, was arrested. The accused was charged under Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and opted for trial. The prosecution examined 30 witnesses in the case including an eyewitness and officials of the police and central forensic science laboratory (CFSL). The defence counsel had argued that the case is not based on an eyewitness account and the eyewitness had disclosed before the court that he had seen around three-four people beating up the victim. Further he could not see the assailants properly as it was dark and had not identified the accused facing trial. The court observed that the DNA profile of blood stains on the accused's clothes was consistent with the victim. Further the court observed that the accused claims he was innocent but didn't explain how he came into possession with the knife bearing the victim's blood and his blood stained clothes. Two more accused, Mukesh and Satpal, who were also facing trial were acquitted, however, Ajay was convicted. During the quantum of sentence, the convict prayed for leniency. The court ruled that it was clear that the convict had committed the murder of the deceased with the knife but it was not the rarest of the rare cases which warrant the death penalty. Accordingly he was sentenced to life imprisonment under Section 302 of the IPC and fined Rs.10,000....