Excelsior Correspondent
ANANTNAG, Sept 3: The Principal District and Sessions Judge Anantnag Tahir Khurshid Raina has acquitted the accused Bilal Ahmad Sofi of Kawniwan, Bijbehara, who was charged and tried for the commission of murder of his pregnant wife as the prosecution failed to prove his guilt beyond the shadow of doubt.
The case was based on an FIR No 20/2017, Police Station Anantnag. As per the prosecution case, the accused had gone to his matrimonial home where his wife was already there. Accused also stayed there for some time as a guest and he had an intention to kill his wife on account of having some doubt about her character.
On the day of occurrence, when his parents in law were away from home and only his minor brother and sister in laws were there at home , he got an opportunity to execute his plan and accordingly assaulted his pregnant wife, which finally led to her death in the SKIMS, Soura on 25th of February, 2017.
The judge found the key witnesses in the case, who happened to be the family witnesses as just the interested witnesses. They were found to be quite unreliable on account of sharp contradictions in their deposition and on account of the unnatural conduct of the parents of the deceased, after being conveyed of the alleged assault of the deceased by the accused, who were then away from home.
Even their conduct after reaching home does not match with the natural course of events had there been any assault committed on their pregnant daughter by the accused son in law. The court observed that such a conduct of parents of the deceased as reflected from the evidence on record does not sustain on the touchstone of the common man’s prudence test in any such situation as projected in the prosecution case.
Even significant lack of medical and scientific evidence in the case further negated the prosecution case against the accused. The investigating officer stated that the deceased was not admitted in any hospital as a medico-legal case. The court observed that a case based on alleged assault theory cannot be decided on mere oral statements but inevitably requires corroboration by medical evidence.
“It’s trite that suspicion, however, grave may be, cannot take place of a proof. It is equally well settled that there is a long distance between may be and must be”, the court said and finally gave the benefit of doubt to the accused and consequently acquitted him of the charges of murder.
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