Killing mother, eating body parts a case of cannibalism, says HC

The Bombay High Court on Tuesday confirmed the death penalty imposed by a Kolhapur court on a man for killing his mother and allegedly eating some of the body parts, noting this was a case of cannibalism and had shaken society's collective conscience.

A division bench of Justices Revati Mohite Dere and Prithviraj Chavan said it was confirming the death penalty on the convict - Sunil Kuchkoravi - for the "brutal and barbaric" crime committed in 2017 and added there was no chance of his reformation.

The bench noted this was a case of cannibalism and it falls under the rarest of rare category and that it was the most "brutal, barbaric and gruesome murder".

"The case falls under the rarest of rare category. The convict not only murdered his mother but he also removed her body parts - brain, heart, liver, kidney, intestine and was cooking them on a pan," the HC observed.

"He had cooked her ribs and was about to cook her heart. This is a case of cannibalism," it said.

There was no chance of reformation of the convict as there are tendencies of cannibalism, the high court observed.

"The act of the convict was quite close to cannibalism. If given life imprisonment, he may commit a similar crime in jail," the bench said.

"Apart from the extreme brutality, cruelty and barbarism with which the convict had murdered his mother in a cold-blooded manner, his conduct was akin to cannibalism," the HC said.

Therefore, Kuchkoravi could be a potential threat to inmates in the jail in case the sentence of life imprisonment was imposed on him, the court maintained.

"A person who could commit such a heinous crime by killing his mother, can do so with anyone else, including his own family. His social integration, therefore, is unquestionably foreclosed," the judges said.

The bench asserted it cannot show any leniency towards the convict as the case had shaken the collective conscience of society.

"To release such a person would amount to giving him a free ride and freedom to commit similar offence against the members of society," it remarked.

The court said a common man would find it quite difficult, distressing, frightening and unsettling even to have a glance at the photographs, which would speak more than a thousand words.

"Words would fall short to describe the grotesque, brutal, inhuman and most cruel act committed by the convict with his mother," it pointed out.

The brutality and cruelty with which the convict had dealt with the body of his mother was evident from the fact that he had even cut her genital organ, which was one of the causes associated with the woman's death, the bench said in its judgment.

"Torture and pain which the deceased must have suffered is unimaginable and unfathomable," it noted.

Kuchkoravi, currently lodged in Pune's Yerwada Central Prison, was informed about the court ruling via video-conferencing.

According to the prosecution, Kuchkoravi, then 35, gruesomely murdered his 63-year-old mother, Yallama Rama Kuchkoravi, on August 28, 2017, at their residence in Kolhapur city, around 400 km from Mumbai.

He later chopped off the body and ate some organs after frying them in a pan, it said.

The prosecution claimed the woman had refused to give money to her son to buy liquor and this was the trigger for the brutal murder.

Kuchkoravi was sentenced to death by a Kolhapur court in 2021.