India's Most Wanted host Ilyasi guilty of wife's death
Ilyasi's career as a producer and host of India's Most Wanted was at its peak in 2000 when Anju died.
New Delhi: A Delhi court on Saturday convicted former television serial producer Suhaib Ilyasi, best remembered as the host of the once popular television crime series India’s Most Wanted, for stabbing to death his wife Anju 17 years ago.
The order was passed by additional sessions judge S.K. Malhotra.
Suhaib was guilty on the charge of murder under the Indian Penal Code. He faces a minimum punishment of life imprisonment and the maximum of death penalty in the case.
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.
Ilyasi has been facing the trial as an accused for the last 17 years in dowry death case of his wife Anju Ilyasi.
Advocate Manu Sharma, who represented Suhaib during the protracted trial, said that the court would hear the arguments on the quantum of sentence to be awarded to the convict on December 20.
Lawyer Satender Sharma, who appeared on behalf of key witness and mother of Anju, Rukma Singh, said the Delhi high court had in August 2014 ruled that Suhaib would face the charge of murder for the death of his wife.
He was earlier charged with comparatively milder Sections, including 304 B (dowry death) of the IPC.
Anju was rushed to a hospital on January 11, 2000 with stab wounds she received at her East Delhi residence.
Suhaib, who had shot into limelight after hosting TV crime show — India’s Most Wanted — was arrested on March 28, 2000 and later charges were framed against him in the case after his sister-in-law and mother-in-law alleged that he used to torture his wife for dowry.
Initially, Ilyasi was booked for charges of subjecting his wife to cruelty, dowry death and destruction of evidence. But later, the Delhi high court in 2014 ordered that Ilyasi be tried for murder.
Ilyasi’s career as a producer and host of India’s Most Wanted was at its peak in 2000 when Anju died.