HIV+ man cleared of killing son he thought was infected too

MUMBAI: A 51-year-old HIV-positive man was recently acquitted of murdering his minor son in 2016 after his wife, the complainant in the case, turned hostile. Police alleged that the accused killed the child after suspecting that he too was HIV positive like his wife, daughter and himself.
The woman denied telling the cops earlier that her husband had called her up after disappearing with their son and said that he had killed him. The child was found drowned in a nullah along the railway tracks.

Observing that the homicidal death of the child was not proved, the sessions court also did not find the alleged motive convincing. "It is not believable that when his wife and daughter are suffering from HIV and they were taking treatment at a civil hospital in Jalna, then merely on suspicion that the deceased might be suffering from HIV, he would take such a drastic step of taking the life of his son," the court said.

The accused and his wife had six children. The accused had been in jail from July 11, 2016. The prosecution stated that on July 5, 2016, the son was crying so the accused took him out. The prosecution said after there no trace of the father and the son, the woman appproached the police at 4am the next day, and later the accused called her on her phone and said he had killed their son.

Pointing to her statement during the trial, the court said her evidence showed that her son was missing, so her husband went to search him.