New Delhi: A court here on Saturday convicted former TV serial producer Suhaib Ilyasi of murdering his wife in 2000.
Additional Sessions Judge S.K. Malhotra held Ilyasi guilty of his wife’s murder and would hear arguments on quantum of sentence on December 20.
In 2014, the Delhi High Court had asked the trial court to add the graver charge of murder under section 302 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) against Ilyasi for his wife’s death.
He faces a minimum punishment of life imprisonment and the maximum of death penalty in the case.
Ilyasi, also the editor-in-chief of Bureaucracy Today magazine, has been facing the trial as an accused for the last 17 years in dowry death case of his wife Anju Ilyasi.
The high court’s order had come on a plea filed by Rukma Singh, Anju’s mother, challenging the February 19, 2011 order of a trial court which had rejected her plea for trying Ilyasi under the penal provision of murder.
Rukma Singh said her son-in-law was facing the charge of killing his wife for dowry under section 304 of IPC, which attracts much lesser punishment.
Anju died January 11, 2000 at her Mayur Vihar house. Ilyasi was arrested March 28, 2000 and charges were later framed against him in the case after his sisters-in-law and mother-in-law alleged that he used to torture his wife for dowry.
The trial court had framed charges against him relating to dowry death and subjecting a woman to cruelty (section 304 (b) and section 498 (a). After the high court order, it charged Ilyasi with murder.
Ilyasi had shot into the limelight after hosting the reality TV show “India’s Most Wanted”.
