Chemistry professor sentenced to life for husband’s murder

Here’s the real story behind Chemistry professor Mamta Pathak, who just got life in prison for her husband’s murder.

Transcript

00:00Are you a chemistry professor?

00:01Yes, yes, yes, sir.

00:03That's Mamata Patak who once stunned a courtroom with a scientific defense

00:06and has now been sentenced to life for murdering her husband.

00:10In a moment that went viral, she walked into the Madhya Pradesh High Court

00:12and argued her own case.

00:14How did she say that this is an electric burn mark?

00:16I don't know.

00:17But here's what happened outside the courtroom.

00:20On 29 April 2021, Dr. Neeraj Patak, Mamata's husband,

00:23was allegedly drugged with sleeping pills and then electrocuted inside the bedroom.

00:28Police say Mamata carefully planned it.

00:30She gave him a heavy dose of sedatives to knock him out,

00:33then used a live wire to kill him.

00:35That's why electrocuting her husband was one of the key allegations she faced.

00:39The next morning, she left for Jhansi with her 28-year-old son Nitesh,

00:42a move believed to delay discovery and hinder forensic analysis.

00:46Mamata returned on first week claiming she found her husband dead.

00:49But a voice recording from 28 April surfaced

00:51in which Dr. Patak alleged harassment by Mamata and their son.

00:54The couple's driver told investigators Mamata had mentioned

00:57making a big mistake while traveling to Jhansi.

01:00Investigators also found that months earlier,

01:02Mamata had filed and later withdrawn a false complaint

01:05accusing her husband of drugging her to meet another woman.

01:08At first, Dr. Patak's death was ruled an electric shock.

01:11But the post-mortem told a different story.

01:13And Mamata was charged with murder.

01:15She was convicted in 2022.

01:17Later, she was granted interim bail to care for her mentally challenged child.

01:20And that's when she filed her appeal.

01:22With limited legal support, she chose to represent herself in court.

01:26Her courtroom clip went viral.

01:28In the post-mortem room, it is not possible to differentiate

01:31between the thermal burn mark and the electric burn mark.

01:34But the high court wasn't moved.

01:36In a 97-page judgment, it upheld her life sentence,

01:40calling the crime grave and the evidence clear.