Though a court here came to the conclusion that it was a case of murder, yet it acquitted a man of the charge of strangulating his wife as the prosecution failed to make a complete chain of circumstances leading to his involvement.
Disclosure statement
The accused had admitted in his disclosure statement that he strangulated his wife due to frequent quarrels between them over his marriage to another woman. But the court set him free as the post-mortem report could not link her death to throttling.
The police had recovered the victim’s body from a sack. It was tied with a rope and thrown in a drain. The family members of the deceased had identified her body.
However, two vital witnesses — one from whom the accused had allegedly purchased the sack and the other who had allegedly seen him throw his wife’s body in the drain — turned hostile during the trial.
“Nothing else has been proved in the present case, which must point out towards the guilt of accused and him alone. The prime witness who the prosecution said had seen the accused throwing the body in the drain contradicted her statement given to the police [during the trial] in toto. Same was with another witness, Same was the fate of yet another witness Sabir, who was to prove the purchase of [a] jute sack by the accused from his bakery shop. With both of these witnesses resiling from their original statements to the police, the chain of circumstantial evidence linking the accused with murder of deceased Sabina broke on more than one occasions,” Additional Sessions Judge Savitri said.
Cause of death unclear
Also, the post-mortem could not ascertain the exact cause of death. The viscera report ruled out the presence of poison during the lavage as well, the judge said.
Autopsy report
On the disclosure statement of the accused, the judge said: “As per disclosure of accused, he had strangulated the deceased but this could not be established from her autopsy that she had died due to strangulation; though it is more than clear it was a case of murder because there was no reason to put the body in a sack had she suffered a natural/ suicidal death...”
A complaint lodged with the Jafrabad police in north-east Delhi stated that the woman had gone missing in April 2013. Her body was found in a drain in the area