India, May 16 -- A court in Maharashtra's Thane district has sentenced a man to life imprisonment for brutally murdering his wife with a hammer in front of their children, relying heavily on the testimony of his 13-year-old daughter, who witnessed the crime.

Principal District and Sessions Judge S B Agrawal convicted the accused, Vijay Mishra alias Samir Shaikh, under Sections 302 (murder) and 324 (voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons) of the Indian Penal Code.

The court sentenced him to life imprisonment along with a concurrent three-year jail term. It also imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh for the murder conviction and an additional Rs 10,000 for injuring his minor daughter and mother-in-law, both of whom had attempted to stop the ...