The Calcutta High Court on Wednesday cancelled the death sentence granted by a lower court to Sushanta Chowdhury for killing his ex-girlfriend Sutapa Chowdhury in May, 2022.
A Calcutta High Court division bench of Justices Debangshu Basak and Mohammad Shabbar Rashidi cancelled the death sentence earlier granted by the lower court and granted Sushanta 40 years of imprisonment along with a fine of Rs 50 thousand. The sentence will be counted from the date of his arrest. The 24-year-old will have to serve in prison for another couple of years if he is unable to pay the fine.
A fast-track court at Berhampore in West Bengal’s Murshidabad district had granted death sentence to Sushanta Chwodhury in September, 2023 for murdering his 18-year-old former girlfriend by stabbing her 42 times openly on the street in front of her hostel.
Sutapa Chowdhury murder case, May 2022
In May, 2022, Sutapa was brutally murdered by her ex-boyfriend Sushanta near a girls’ hostel in the Gorabazar area of Berhampore. Following this, the accused was arrested by the state police for the gruesome murder from his hometown in Malda district. The police had arrested Sushanta after examining CCTV footage from security cameras installed in the area. Also 32 eye witnesses had testified during the trial.
After more than a year, Berhampore court judge Santosh Kumar Pathak had passed the sentence after declaring Sushanta Chowdhury guilty of murdering Sutapa Chowdhury outside a girls’ hostel in Berhampore in May, 2022.
Soon after the death sentence was announced, Sushanta’s lawyer Pijush Ghosh had told media that he would challenge the verdict in Calcutta High Court.
Why and how Sushanta killed Sutapa?
Sutapa Chowdhury, an 18-year-old college student used to live in a girls’ hostel in Murshidabad’s Berhampore. She was in a relationship with Sushanta since high school, who she had met at a private coaching centre. Both were natives of neighbouring Malda district. Sutapa shifted to Murshidabad after completing school and took admission in Zoology Department in Berhampore Girls’ College.
After Sushanta got addicted to drugs, Sutapa announced a breakup. Following which, Sushanta decided to kill her, alleged her family. Sutapa’s family further said that Sushanta used to blackmail Sutapa trying to win her back and had even threatened to kill her on several occasions.
She was stabbed 42 times by her ex-boyfriend Sushanta, the prosecution had informed the court. When some local youths tried to intervene, the accused brandished a toy pistol to scare them away.
“Sushanta admitted that he killed Sutapa because she had walked out of the relationship. This cannot be a reason to commit such a heinous crime. He kept stabbing the victim to ensure her death,” public prosecutor Bibhas Chatterjee had told the media after the sentence was announced.
