Action Committee welcomes death sentence in Punia clan murder

Hisar, Feb 15 (UNI) The Action Committee formed to fight for justice in Relu Ram Punia and family murder case today welcomed the Supreme Court's decision to award death sentence to the murdered former MLA's daughter Sonia and her husband Sanjiv Kumar.

''The fate decided by the Supreme Court for the killer duo is justified and we welcome it. The facts and evidence would have been destroyed had we not struggled at that time for the arrest of the guilty, '' Udayvir Punia, spokesman of the action committee said.

Justices B N Agarwal and P P Naolekar today set aside the Haryana and Punjab High Court verdict reducing the death sentence given in May 2004 by a Faridabad trial court in the case.

The motive behind the killings was stated to be a property dispute.

The victims of the accused besides the former MLA were her mother, brother, sister-in-law, two of their children and her own sister.

''It was for wealth and nothing else that prompted them to kill the parents and even younger sister who was called from the school and was in school dress when slaughtered in the bed,'' Mr Udayvir Punia said.

''It was a pre-planned brutal crime when on the night of August 23, 2001 the family members sleeping in different rooms of the huge Haveli on the outskirts of village Prabhuwala near Barwala, were tied up and battered to death.'' Sonia had feigned unconsciousness next morning when the servants living on ground floor went up to call the children for school van.

It was later proved in the investigations that after the murders Sonia had driven her husband Sanjeev to catch a bus and then returned to the haveli.

''The whole incident was made more shocking by the fact that the family had gone to bed after celebrating and firing crackers on the occasion of the birthday of Priyanka, younger sister of Sonia, who was specially called by her from the school,'' Mr Punia said.

''The guilty couple did not want to leave any successor to the property except themselves,'' he added.

Relu Ram Punia was elected independent MLA in 1996. He had amassed huge wealth and had become politically ambitious. His wife Krishna Punia became his opponent in the politics but the differences were later resolved. Relu Ram was known to spend liberally on the children, Mr Udayvir Punia said.

UNI