A court at Kollam in Kerala on Wednesday sentenced to a double life term in jail, the 32-year-old man who was found guilty of murdering his wife by unleashing a deadly cobra snake on her bed.

The convict has to undergo all sentences separately and the life sentence will start only after 17 years, according to the court ruling, which means he has to spend his entire life in jail.

The prosecution had sought a death sentence as it was the rarest of rare crimes.

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This was the culprit Sooraj's second attempt to murder his wife, after having failed in his first with a venomous viper earlier in February 2020. His wife Uthara was hospitalised for a month after she was bitten by the viper but succumbed to the cobra's lethal bite in May 2020.

During the investigation the police found that both snakes were procured from a local snake handler Suresh, who later turned an approver. He also admitted to training Sooraj to handle the snake.