The court held that it was an act of “brutal decapitation” and reflected “extreme depravity”.

The division Bench of Justice Dr S Radhakrishnan and Justice Roshan Dalvi confirmed the death penalty for convict Dnyaneshwar Kulal, who severed the head of his relative Dhondiram Kulal on a superstitious belief that the latter had caused the death of the convict’s father, Haribhau, using black magic.

The judges said, “Presence of the accused in society would be a great menace.”

Dhondiram, a resident of Phaltan in Satara who worshiped Satoba, was 70 years old and unarmed when the convict brutally severed his head in “one blow”, the court observed.

Describing the murder as “highly pre-planned” and “pre-meditated”, the court held that Dnyaneshwar had very brutally gone around the fields with the victim’s head in a gunny bag, while he threw the headless corpse in another field.

In fact, the convict’s relative who is a shepherd, had told the trial court that Dnyaneshwar had come to the field on a horse carrying a gunny bag where he was grazing his cattle and had demanded money from him.

Additional Public Prosecutor A R Patil pointed out that the convict had even shown the Dhondiram’s severed head to the witness to scare him when he expressed his inability to pay the money.

Dnyaneshwar had threatened to kill Dhondiram on September 2, 2004 and actually committed the act then, while his skull was recovered by the police on October 27, 2004 from another field.

Dhondiram’s son had filed a missing complaint after his father failed to return home and the police then received information that a body was found lying in a field without the head.

The convict was absconding until his arrest on April 12, 2005. The police following the statement of the accused later recovered the sickle and his clothes after the arrest.