INDIA: A former politician from India's main opposition Congress Party has been convicted of killing his wife and then trying to burn her dismembered body in the tandoor, or open air barbecue, of a restaurant, in the capital New Delhi in order to get rid of it.
The sentence, which will be handed down tomorrow, could mean the death penalty for Sushil Sharma, who shot his pilot wife Naina Sahni (29) in July 1995 on suspicion of infidelity, cut up her body and tried disposing it off by setting it alight in the tandoor of a popular city restaurant on the one day of the week that it was closed.
The former manager of the restaurant where Sharma ladled clarified butter onto his wife's body smouldering inside the tandoor to help it burn swiftly, was convicted of conspiring with the politician to try to dispose off the chopped-up corpse. He too is likely to get a prison sentence of about 10 years.
Three others who were arrested on charges of harbouring Sharma, who was on the run for a month after killing his wife before he was apprehended, were acquitted. The judge has ordered the criminal prosecution of a senior bureaucrat from the western state of Gujarat for sheltering Sharma during the nationwide hunt for him.
"Crime never pays," joint police commissioner Mr Maxwell Pereira, who tracked down Sharma, said after the verdict was announced.
Having shot his wife, Sharma - who is currently in prison - ferried her body to the tandoori restaurant in the heart of Delhi after dark and with assistance from its manager, stuffed it into the oven and set fire to it after liberally coating it with ghee or clarified butter.
A policeman's suspicions were aroused when he saw the flames and smelt burning flesh on the day the restaurant was normally closed. A raid on the tandoor led to parts of the charred body being recovered, which were identified as Sahni's.
The conviction in the tandoor murder case that rocked the capital eight years ago, greatly discrediting Congress, has come back to haunt the party ahead of crucial polls in five states later this month. The Congress Party's political rivals are likely to turn the sensational killing by one of its former prominent members into a major electoral issue.