Fate of Shakereh’s killer uncertain

Though the Supreme Court found the self-proclaimed godman Swami Shraddhananda guilty of murdering Shakereh, the grand daughter of late Dewan of Mysore Sir Mirza Ismail, in Bangalore during 1991, the fate of the 71-year-old killer remained uncertain as the Court has given a split verdict on the death sentence awarded to him by the Karnataka High Court.

According to information reaching here, a division bench of the Supreme Court comprising S B Sinha and Markandey Katju found little difficulty in convicting Swami Shraddhananda alias Manohar Mishra of killing Shakereh by lacing her tea with sedatives and later burying her alive in the courtyard of her sprawling bungalow on Richmond Road in Bangalore. But, when it came to the question of punishment, the judges differed.

While Justice Katju confirmed the death penalty, Justice Sinha ruled that Shraddhananda deserved life imprisonment instead of death. Though the judges concurred on the guilt of the convict, they differed if the case fell into the “rarest of the rare” category.

The division bench has now referred the matter to a larger bench. Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan will now constitute a larger bench, which would decide on the quantum of punishment to be awarded to Shraddhananda, who has already served 13 years in prison.

The deceased Shakereh Namazi had married Akbar Khaleeli, ex envoy of India to Iran, in 1964. Later, she came into contact with the self-styled godman and divorced Khaleeli in 1985. Shakereh married Shraddhananda in 1986 and subsequently a general power of attorney and a will in favour of him, according to the prosecution.

Shakereh was murdered in 1991 and Shraddhananda continued to live in her bungalow even after her death. When Shakereh’s daughter from her first marriage Sabah Khaleeli questioned him about her mother in 1992, Shraddhananda lied that she had gone abroad.

But, Sabah Khaleeli lodged missing complaint with the Bangalore police in 1992. After one of Shraddhananda’s servants spilt the beans, the police exhumed the skeletal remains of Shakereh from the backyard of the house in March 1994 and arrested Shraddhananda. The skull and DNA tests had confirmed the identity of her skeletal remains.

The sensational murder of Shakereh, the grand daughter of the late dewan of erstwhile Mysore state Sir Mirza Ismail, had sent shock waves across Karnataka and different parts of the country.

The trail court in Bangalore had imposed death sentence on Shraddhananda for the crime. The death sentence had been upheld by the Karnataka High Court during September 2005.