When the professor of India used chemistry as a defense in the murder trial but failed

“Are you a chemistry teacher?” The judge asked.

“Yes,” replied Mamta Pathak, shaking her hand in a respectful namaste.

Draped in a white sari, glasses perched on his nose, the retired college teacher was held in front of two judges in a courtroom in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, speaking as if they gave a conference of medico-legal chemistry.

“In the post-mortem,” she explained, her trembling but composed voice, “it is not possible to differentiate a thermal burn and a brand of electric burning without appropriate chemical analysis.”

On the other side of the bench, judge Vivek Agarwal reminded him: “The doctor who directed the autopsy said that there were clear signs of electrocution.”

It was a rare moment, almost surreal – a 63 -year -old woman, accused of having murdered her husband by electrocution, explaining to the court how acids and tissue reactions revealed the nature of a burn.

The exchange, captured in video during its April audience, became viral in India and amazed the Internet. But before the court, no expert confidence was able to cancel the accusation case – a murdered spouse and a reason rooted in suspicion and conjugal discord.

Last month, the High Court rejected Mamta Pathak’s appeal and confirmed her sentence to perpetuity for the murder in April 2021 of her husband, Neeraj Pathak, a retired doctor.

While Pathak set up an animated and self -acquired defense – invoking gaps in the autopsy, the insulation of the house and even an electrochemical theory – the court found the circumstantial evidence concluding: she had drugged her husband with sleeping pills and then electrocuted it.

In court, Mamta, a mother of two, had watched a pile of overflowing files, leafing through them before becoming animated.

“Sir, electric burning marks cannot be distinguished as ante mortem (before death) or post-mortem (after death),” she said citing a legal medicine book.

“How did they (doctors) who wrote that it was an electric burning brand in the autopsy (report)?”.

Under the microscope, electric burns are alike before and after death, making the exams standard, say experts. A close study of skin changes can reveal whether a burn was ante or post mortem, according to an article.

An impromptu exchange on chemical reactions followed, the judge probing her on laboratory processes. Mamta spoke of different acids, explaining that the distinctions could be made using an electron microscope – something not possible in a post mortem room. She tried to browse the judge through electron microscopy and different acids. Three women lawyers smiled.

Mamta has plowed – She said she has been studying law in prison for a year. Filling her files to the tab with stickers and citing medicine-legal medicine books, she highlighted alleged gaps in the survey-of the crime scene not examined in the absence of skilled electrical and medico-legal experts at crime.

“Our house was ensured from 2017 to 2022, and the inspections confirmed that it was protected from electric fires,” she said.

Mamta told court that her husband had blood pressure and high heart disease. She said the real cause of death was to shrink and “the calcification of her coronary arteries due to old age”. She also suggested that he had been able to slip and undergo a hematoma, but no scanner was made to confirm it.

Neeraj Pathak, 65, was found dead at the family home on April 29, 2021. The autopsy ruled the electrocution as a cause of death. A few days later, Mamta was arrested and accused of murder.

The police had entered an 11 -meter electric wire with a two -pin cap and video surveillance images of the couple’s house. Six sleeping tablets were recovered from a bunch of 10.

The post-mortem report cited the cardiorepiratory shock of electric current on several sites as a cause of death, occurring 36 to 72 hours before the realization of the autopsy on May 1.

“But they did not find my fingerprints on the strip of tablets,” Mamta told the judges.

But his arguments quickly took place, leaving the judges Agarwal and Devnarayan Sinha not convinced.

For almost four decades, Mamta and Neeraj Pathak have lived an apparently orderly life in the middle class in Chhatarpur – a district subject to the dryness of Madhya Pradesh known for its farms, its granite careers and its small businesses.

She taught chemistry at the college of local government; He was the chief doctor of the district hospital. They raised two sons – one settled abroad, the other, sharing a house with his mother. Neeraj retired voluntarily in 2019 after 39 years as a government doctor, then opened a private clinic at home.

The incident occurred during the pandemic. Neeraj presented coated symptoms and remained on the first floor. Mamta and her son, Nitish, stayed at the bottom. Two staircases on the ground floor linked Neeraj’s rooms to the open gallery and the waiting hall of its private clinic, where half a dozen staff collapsed between the laboratory and the medical store.

The 97 -page judgment said that Mamta said he found her husband Neeraj unanswered in bed on April 29, but had not informed a doctor or police until May 1. Instead, she took her eldest son to Jhansi – more than 130 km – for no clear reason, according to the driver, and returned the same evening. She claimed ignorance about how he died when she finally alerted the police.

Under this silence was a disturbed marriage. The judges underlined the longtime marital discord, the couple living apart and Mamta suspecting her husband of infidelity.

On the morning of the day of his death, Neeraj had called a partner, alleging that Mamta “tortured him”, locking him in a bathroom, holding food for days and causing physical injuries. He also accused her of taking money, ATM cards, vehicle keys and bank fixed deposit documents. Aid, the son of Neeraj contacted a friend who alerted the police, who then saved the doctor retired from what was described as the “Mamta guard”.

The couple had even lived lately, adding weight to the doubts of the court.

Mamta had told the court that she was the “best mother”, presenting a birthday card of her children as proof. She has also shown photos of her feeding her husband and family snapshots.

However, the judges were not moved. They noted that such affection tokens had not erased the reason – after all, an “adored mother” can also be a “suspicious wife”, they said.

Fifty minutes after his testimony, after talking about questions and defending himself against the doubts of the courtyard, Mamta’s composure weakened for the first time.

“I know one thing … I didn’t kill him,” she said, her voice escaping.

At another time, she admitted: “I can’t take it much more.”

By trying to relieve tension, judge Agarwal pointed out: “You must be used to that … You must take lessons for 50 minutes at university.”

“Forty minutes, sir. But they are small children,” said Mamta.

“Little children at university? But your designation is a deputy professor,” pressed the judge.

“But they are children, sir,” she replied.

“Do not tell us about such stories,” suddenly interrupted judge Agarwal.

Mamta fought not only as a defendant, but as a teacher transforming the courtroom into a chemistry laboratory – in the hope of proving his innocence through science. However, in the end, the cold facts were stronger than its lessons.