DDA official given life imprisonment for murdering wife, child

Dehradun, Nov 11: A CBI court here sentenced a Delhi Development Authority official on Nov 11 to life imprisonment for murdering his wife and 18-month-old daughter 26 years ago.

Special CBI Judge Amit Kumar Sirohi sentenced Seva Ram Goyal, a DDA employee, to life imprisonment after finding him guilty of pushing his wife whom he suspected of being in an extra-marital affair and their daughter off a cliff at Bhairavghati in 1988, CBI public prosecutor Pankaj Kumar said.

Goel had been convicted in the case by the court yesterday. He had suspected his wife of being in an illicit affair with a relative and his daughter of being born out of that relationship, and connived with his father Satya Narayan and hatched a plot to kill them, he said.

53-year-old Goel, who was 27 at the time, brought them to Bhairavghati, about 10 km from Gangotri town, on the pretext of taking them on a pilgrimage, where he asked his wife to pose for a photograph with the child in her arms and then pushed them to death, Kumar said.

On his way back, he lodged complaint with the police at Haridwar saying that his wife and child had gone missing, the CBI counsel said. The CBI had taken over the probe into the case at the direction of the Supreme Court in 1990. Goel's father passed away during the probe a few years ago.

PTI