Firozabad, Apr 27 (IANS): A Firozabad court has awarded the death sentence to a 32-year-old-man who stabbed his wife's 70-year-old grandmother to death with a screwdriver during a robbery attempt last year on April 1.

The court of additional sessions judge Azad Singh, found Tarun Goyal, who has a four-year-old child, guilty of all the charges against him.

The court ordered that he should be "hanged by the neck till death", and also imposed a fine of Rs 65,000 on him.

Tarun was booked under IPC section 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 395 (voluntarily causing hurt while committing robbery), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 411 (dishonestly receiving stolen property).

The prosecution lawyer said the victim, Kamla Devi, was stabbed in the neck with a screwdriver several times by Tarun.

When Kamla's maid tried to stop him, she too was attacked and was left critically injured. The maid was lucky to survive.

"After the murder, Tarun decamped with cash, along with gold and silver jewellery. During investigation, it was found that he was in debt after suffering losses in business, and killed Kamala Devi when he came to know that she had money," said special public prosecutor Ajay Kumar Sharma.

Kamala Devi was a resident of Arya Nagar colony in Firozabad city and was the head of the family that has businesses in glass manufacturing and exports.

On the day of the crime, only Kamla Devi and her maid were in the house as other family members had gone out to watch a film. After the crime, her grandson, Arpit Jindal, lodged a police complaint against unidentified persons.

Following a probe, Tarun was arrested and the looted valuables and cash recovered.

"The statement of Kamla's maid played a crucial role in the case. Forensic samples of hair found in the hands of the deceased were sent for DNA testing, which nailed Tarun, who had confessed in court that he was debt-ridden and he did this to come out of his bad financial situation," the prosecutor said.