Aizawl: A district court in Mizoram on Thursday sentenced a 38-year-old woman to 10 years imprisonment for killing her niece, a court official said.
Champhai district additional and session judge Sylvie Zomuanpuii Ralte convicted and sentenced Chingsianzovi to 10 years imprisonment and slapped a fine of Rs. 5,000 against the convict, the official said.
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Chingsianzovi will have to undergo additional imprisonment of one year if she fails to pay her fine, he said.
Chingsianzovi who hailed from east Mizoram’s Khawzawl town, strangulated her 13-year-old niece Catherine T. Biaksiami to death in February last year.
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The two were camping at a farmhouse to collect firewood at the time of the incident.
Chingsianzovi asked Catherine to collect firewood during the day and she burst out into anger when she saw the number of firewood the girls collected was not up to her satisfaction.
The two quarrelled and in a fit of rage, Chingsianzovi choked her niece to death with the help of ‘Hnam” (a traditional strap for carrying loads).
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Initially, Chingsianzovi denied the murder and told police that an unidentified man had attempted to kidnap Catherine and that she apprehended and tied the culprit with a rope.
However, when the police team reached the crime scene they found the girl already lying dead in the farmhouse.
Later, Chingsianzovi was detained in police custody and subsequently, she confessed her crime before the police.
The prosecution upheld that the convict killed her niece not intentionally but by mistake as she was under the alcoholic influence at the time of the incident and was convicted under section 304 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
She was also convicted under section 182 of IPC for giving false information to the police.
Catherine was an orphan whose father had died a few years ago and she was living with her aunt Chingsianzovi in Khawzawl town.