A Delhi court has acquitted a man chargesheeted for shooting his mother-in-law dead during a fight with his wife as the husband, daughter, son and granddaughter of the deceased refused to support the case during trial.
The Bharat Nagar police in Rohni had made them witnesses in the case after recording their statements. Further, in addition to the police statement, the probe agency had got the statement of the victim’s granddaughter recorded before a Metropolitan Magistrate.
Against police statement
But all of them went against their police statements leading to the acquittal of the accused.
The victim’s daughter and complainant in the case said the pistol belonging to her husband got accidentally fired by her mother and the bullet hit her chest causing death on the spot. The accused had kept his pistol with his wife who had given it to her mother for safe custody, she added. In her police statement, she said that she had shifted to her parents’ house after harassment at the hand of her alcoholic husband. On the day of the incident, her husband came to her parents’ home late in the night and started misbehaving with her. When her mother intervened, he took out his pistol and fired at her killing her on the spot. The victim’s granddaughter said in her testimony that she did not know whether her father came at the spot as she was sleeping. The court decided not to query her on her statement recorded by the Magistrate in view of her being a minor. The victim’s husband said he did not see who had fired at his wife. Her son stated that on the date of the incident he was sleeping as he was unwell.
Allowing argument by counsel for the accused, Satnarain Sharma, that the court can not convict his client in absence of sufficient evidence, Additional Sessions Judge Ajay Pandey said: “In view of account of events given by the victim’s daughter, this court is of the opinion that the offences are not proved against the accused. Accused is entitled for benefit of doubt.”
However, the court held him guilty of handing over his pistol to his mother-in-law in breach of the licence terms that the weapon must not be transferred to an unauthorised person.