All accused in the snake bite murder case were arrested last year. (Representational)
The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to grant bail to an accused in a case where a woman was killed after being bitten by a snake.
A bench of Chief Justice NV Ramana, Justice Surya Kant and Justice Hima Kohli was hearing the bail plea of an accused who hails from Rajasthan. During the hearing, Justice Surya Kant said, "This is a new trend that people bring poisonous snakes from snake charmers and kill a person through snake bite. This is now becoming common in Rajasthan."
Advocate Aditya Chaudhary, appearing for the accused Krishna Kumar, said, "There is no direct evidence against the accused".
It is alleged that Krishna Kumar had gone to the snake charmer with the main accused and had bought a snake for Rs 10,000.
Mr Chaudhary argued that his client did not know why his friend was buying snakes or poison. He was told that it was needed for medicinal purposes.
The lawyer argued that Mr Kumar did not even go to the woman's house with the snake. He added that the accused is an engineering student and should be given bail for the sake of his future.
The incident had made headlines in 2019 when a woman was killed by her daughter-in-law by getting her bitten by a snake in a village in the Jhunjhunu district of Rajasthan. It has been alleged that the daughter-in-law, Alpana, had an extramarital affair with Manish, a resident of Jaipur.
Alpana and her mother-in-law Subodh Devi used to live together and Alpana's husband and brother-in-law are in the army and used to live away because of their profession.
Subodh Devi's husband Rajesh also used to live away from home due to his job.
Sachin and Alpana were married on December 12, 2018. When her husband was away, Alpana had an extramarital affair with Manish. They used to talk often. When Subodh Devi came to know about the affair she started taunting her daughter-in-law for always being on the phone.
When the mother-in-law started becoming a hindrance in the love story, Alpana and her lover Manish planned to kill Subodh Devi in such a manner that they would not get traced.
On June 2, 2019, Subodh Devi was bitten by a snake. However, a month and a half after her death, Alpana's in-laws suspected her and lodged a police complaint. They also gave some evidence. The family gave the phone numbers of Alpana and Manish to the police.
According to the police records, on June 2, the day of the incident, 124 calls were made between Alpana and Manish and 19 calls were made between Alpana and Krishna Kumar.
Some messages were also shared between these numbers.
The police then said that Alpana, Manish and their friend Krishna Kumar were involved in the murder of Subodh Devi. All the three accused were arrested on January 4, 2020, and have been in jail since then.