Man accused of killing woman he wanted to marry walks free

Ravneet Singh

Panchkula, March 24

The court of Additional Sessions Judge Praveen Kumar Lal has acquitted a person who was accused of murdering a woman he wanted to marry. The man was acquitted over the failure of the prosecution to connect the chain of events of murder to the accused.

What court observed

• Nobody saw the accused committing the offence.
• The offence was committed on May 27, 2020, but the complaint moved two days later.
• The investigating team had failed to collect any CCTV footage of the locality where the incident took place.
• The prosecution evidences brought on record could not complete the chain of events to prove its case.

Mukul, a migrant living in Mauli Jagran, Chandigarh, was charged with murdering a woman.

In a complaint to the police, the deceased woman’s father Ram Charan, a resident of Budhanpur here, stated that Mukul wanted to marry his daughter Preeti, but the family was against the inter-caste marriage. He said Mukul had called him up on May 27, 2020, and asked about Preeti. The same day he came to know about his daughter’s unnatural death. The complainant suspected that Mukul had committed the crime.

The prosecution brought witnesses, including the residents of the house where the woman had been murdered, her family members, statements of police and medical officers who visited the crime spot and others along with documentary evidence on record.

The accused, however, denied the charges.

Mukul’s counsel Sameer Sethi stated that despite examining a number of witnesses, the prosecution could not prove its case beyond reasonable doubt. He pointed towards different versions with regard to the discovery of the body.

The advocate also referred to the girl’s father’s statement during cross-examination where he had stated, “…I cannot say who has killed my daughter. I had not seen Mukul killing my daughter”.

The counsel said the accused was implicated only on the suspicion of failed love affair and added that there was no eyewitness to the case and also there existed no chain of circumstances which could result in Mukul’s conviction.

The court observed that nobody had seen the accused committing the offence. The offence was committed on May 27, but the complainant moved an application two

days later. The court held the May 29 statement of the woman’s father as a delayed report and unjustified. It pointed out that the probe team failed to collect any CCTV footage of the locality where the incident had taken place.

The court acquitted Mukul while stating that the prosecution evidences brought on record could not complete the chain of events to prove its case.