Kanpur, Jun 27 (IANS): A court in Uttar Pradesh's Kanpur has awarded life imprisonment to a 26-year-old youth for the murder of his neighbour during a robbery at her house seven years ago.

The body of Nisha Kejriwal, 52, was found inside her house on July 12, 2017.

Police managed to establish the presence of Nisha’s neighbour Aditya Narain Singh, then 19, at the crime spot, through CCTV footage.

It was established that he had murdered the woman for robbery. Nisha Kejriwal was alone at home when Aditya Singh struck, as her husband and son were at their shop and her daughter was in school. The convict had friendly relations with the Kejriwals and was well aware of the daily routine of every member of the house.

Police had recovered gold and silver ornaments and Rs 1.4 lakh cash from Aditya’s house during the investigation.

The Kanpur police said that before the murder, Aditya was in Mumbai for three years. He had cleared CLAT and studied LLB only for the first semester, as he was expelled from college because of his “bad habits”.

Demanding capital punishment for the accused, additional district govt counsel Vinod Tripathi submitted he had committed a heinous crime and had hit “as many as 13 blows of hammer and knife” on the victim’s face.

Additional sessions judge Azad Singh observed that the investigating officer, Rajan Kumar Rawat, had made several errors, and directed a copy of the court order to be sent to the commissioner of police for “appropriate action”.