Mumbai:  Kannada actress Maria Susairaj has been sentenced to three years’ imprisonment in the Neeraj Grover case. A sentence she has already served during trial. This means that she shall walk free. Her former fiance, Jerome Mathew, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for killing TV executive Neeraj Grover in May 2008.
The court held yesterday that Neeraj was killed at Kannada actress Maria Susairaj’s flat in a Mumbai suburb by her fiancé and former Navy officer Jerome Mathew on May 7, 2008. Maria and Jerome were found guilty. But not of murder. Mr Mathew has been held guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and destruction of evidence.
The judge accepted yesterday that Mr Mathew had killed Neeraj in a fit of jealousy after finding him at Ms Susairaj’s flat. But it was not pre-planned murder, and so Mr Mathew was indicted for culpable homicide not amounting to murder and of destroying evidence. Ms Susairaj, the court said, had been proven guilty of destruction of evidence.
Today, the prosecution has sought a life sentence for Mr Mathew. It has contended that the former Navy officer didn’t need to kill Neeraj; that having had commando training, he could have easily overpowered Neeraj. It has also pointed to the brutal manner the body was disposed of. As a naval officer, Jerome was supposed to defend the country, but he committed this crime, the prosecution pleaded.
Yes, he joined the defence services to serve the nation and he still wanted to do so, said Mr Mathew’s lawyer, pleading for a lenient sentence. The lawyer said maximum quantum of sentence was for habitual offenders, which, he said, Mr Mathew was not. The former Navy officer, the lawyer said, had “lost his balance of mind” when the incident happened.
He also pleaded that his client had cooperated in the case from the first day on and that his conduct had been good, that he had dependent parents and that he had had a good education.
Maria’s lawyer asked the court to consider that she was young and unmarried. He pleaded with the court to consider releasing her since she had already served her sentence.
Neeraj, a promising, young TV executive credited with developing the hit TV quiz show Kya Aap Paanchvi Pass Se Tez Hain? presented by Shah Rukh Khan, went missing in May 2008 and was found to have been killed – his body had been chopped into pieces, and transported to another suburb in gunny bags, where the corpse was set on fire. Maria and Jerome were arrested soon after.
Neeraj Grover’s father Amarnath Grover spent Thursday afternoon glued to the television in his small home in Kanpur. But when the news broke, it was not what he’d been waiting for.
“If this is justice, it is worthless, I don’t have trust on such a judiciary that didn’t go by facts. It is all a matter of interpretation. Look at the telephone records. Maria had called him over to his house. I spoke to him till then, where was he? He left from Maria’s house,” said Amarnath Grover.
The verdict of the sessions court, that has been hearing this sensational case for over two years now, has come as a huge setback to the police and prosecution.
“Even I am shocked by the verdict. Certainly we will go into an appeal,” said RV Kini, Public Prosecutor.
The judge said, “The killing took place on the spur of the moment. Obviously any man who finds his fiancé with another man will get upset and lose control.”
What seemed to have helped Mr Mathew and Ms Susairaj is that the prosecution was able to provide only circumstantial evidence and could not conclusively prove that the couple had conspired to kill Mr Grover. It was also unable to establish a motive for murder for Ms Susairaj.